I recently attended the Remote Telemonitoring and Home Telehealth Forum sponsored by the American Telemedicine Association. There was “standing room only.”
I am not sure if our end of the health care industry has yet grasped the importance of telemedicine and how it can dramatically affect the way health care services will be provided and monitored in the future.
Telemedicine is best described as the ability to monitor a patient using the latest tools available electronically. This means that pertinent information can be available to medical practitioners without the patient's being physically present — and without sending a person to obtain the patient's data. The result is two-fold: reduced costs and improved care.
What I learned at the ATA conference was the “how” of telemedicine. The new equipment I saw during these sessions has the capability of providing a patient's vital signs to a doctor almost instantaneously.
The patient is able to have his weight recorded, his blood pressure and pulse rate indicated, oxygen concentration and other vital information transmitted directly to the practitioner. Armed with this material, decisions can be made as to how the patient is responding to care and whether there is a necessity for further follow-up by the technician, nurse or physician.
One of the challenges to telemedicine currently being addressed is reimbursement. Who should be paid? How should this payment be provided? The provider who supplies the monitoring unit, the person who administers the service and the expert who receives, records and responds to this information all should be reimbursed.
Currently, there are schedules in place for some specific services, and in pending legislation for prescriptions there are codes that will assign payments for telemedicine services.
What I hope to see in the near future is Medicare and other payers offering HME dealers and home health agencies sufficient reimbursement for providing telemedicine services. If payers recognize that providing care electronically will cut health care costs, then they will see the necessity for reimbursing for telemonitoring services.
I spoke to a nurse from an HHA who told me that the agency's ability to monitor its patients electronically has afforded them many benefits. Cost for the care of patients has been greatly reduced. Telemedicine has freed up the ability of their nurses to make calls to those patients who require them without having to deny services to others. The response from those patients who are able to send information via the “telemedicine station” in their home has been excellent. The patients gain confidence and a large level of comfort.
Since every bit of information can be documented as received, the patient history that is developed is of great value when determining treatment. Another big plus the agency realized has been reflected by the fact that these patients do not make many visits to emergency rooms, another great cost savings to the government.
HME/DME dealers should become the source from which HHAs and others obtain this telemonitoring equipment. Speak with the manufacturers that provide this equipment about becoming a distribution center for their products. In cooperation with the manufacturer, you can train your personnel to service and maintain these units.
The potential is there, and the entrepreneurs who see telemedicine as an opportunity will profit greatly.
For information about the American Telemedicine Association (ATA), visit www.atmeda.org or contact the association via e-mail at info@americantelemed.org.
Sheldon “Shelly” Prial is a partner with HPS Healthcare Management. In 1987, he founded the Homecare Providers Co-op, now part of the VGM Group. He can be reached by e-mail at shelly.prial@worldnet.att.net or by phone at 888/367-7208.
