Category Archives: Virtual Healthcare

Fewer than 10% of primary care practices have stabilized operations amid COVID-19 pandemic

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/fewer-than-10-primary-care-practices-have-stabilized-operations-amid-covid-19-pandemic?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJGaE1qTTRaalpsT1dGayIsInQiOiJTNWFxb3VcL3J3ZmE4ZWV0bFwvOGJCYUc0Ukd3TWp4WlM1SzBzT01aeVJIUGlsSWkwNTlVajJxekJqUUsrcWoxZ0IwTUNqVlhTWVJLQmZkSk1XNGtKVEdCOWg3NmRWeFdldFpsSmlONnFvTTFGQ2l1bzQ4S3ZqNWpoaUx2d1pHaSs1In0%3D

Fewer than 10% of primary care practices have stabilized ...

Four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer than 10% of U.S. primary care practices have been able to stabilize operations.

Nearly 9 in 10 primary care practices continue to face significant difficulties with COVID-19, including obtaining medical supplies, meeting the increasing health needs of their patients, and finding sufficient resources to remain operational, according to a recent survey of close to 600 primary care clinicians in 46 states.

Only 13% of primary care clinicians say they are adapting to a “new normal” in the protracted pandemic, the survey found.

More than four months into the pandemic and at a time when 39 states are experiencing an increase of COVID-19 cases, fewer than 4 in 10 clinicians feel confident and safe with their access to personal protective equipment, according to the survey from the Larry A. Green Center in partnership with the Primary Care Collaborative, which was conducted July 10 to July 13.

Among the primary care clinicians surveyed, 11% report that staff in their practice have quit in the last four weeks over safety concerns.

A primary care provider in Ohio said this: “The ‘I can do 4-6 weeks of this’ transition to ‘this feels like a new/permanent normal’ is crushing and demoralizing. Ways to build morale when everyone is at a computer workstation away from other staff (and patients) feels impossible.”

“In the first few months of the pandemic, the country pulled together to stop the spread of the virus, and it seemed like we were making progress. Primary care clinicians and practices were working hard, against tremendous challenges,” said Rebecca Etz, Ph.D., co-director of The Larry A. Green Center in a statement.

“But now the country is backsliding, and it’s clear that primary care doesn’t have enough strength to deal with the rising number of cases. If primary care were a COVID-19 patient, it would be flat on its back,” Etz said.

The survey conducted by the Larry A. Green Center is part of an ongoing series looking at the attitudes of primary care clinicians and patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and the abilities of practices to meet patients’ needs.

Close to 40% of primary care providers report they are maxed out with mental exhaustion and 18% say they spend each week wondering if their practice or job will still be there next week.

In addition to feeling stressed, clinicians and their practices are also experiencing upheaval. The survey found that 22% of clinicians report skipped or deferred salaries, and 78% report preventive and chronic care is being deferred or delayed by patients.

Primary care clinicians report that 42% of in-person volume is down but overall contact with patients is high, while 39% report not being able to bill for the majority of work delivered, the survey found.

“Given the rapidly rising infection rates and persistent lack of PPE, more than a third of primary care clinicians are reporting feeling unsafe at the office, and 20% are cutting back on face-to-face visits while doing more remote outreach,” said Ann Greiner, president and CEO of the Primary Care Collaborative in a statement.

Greiner said this is a clear signal that payers must advance or retain parity for telehealth and telephonic calls.

“It also is a clarion call to move to a new payment system that doesn’t rely on face-to-face visits and that is prospective so practices can better manage patient care,” she said.

Providers say they need more support from private insurers, particularly when it comes to reimbursing for telehealth and telephone visits. 

According to the survey, a primary care doctor in Illinois said, “Recently told we would not be able to conduct telephone visits due to lack of reimbursement. I work in a low-income Medicare population which has low health literacy and no technology literacy. We were 80% telephone and 20% Zoom and in-office. This further exemplifies the extreme health care disparities in the U.S.”

 

 

 

6 months in: What will the new normal look like for hospitals?

Posted on by • Posted in Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Coronavirus Treatment, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Crisis, Crisis Management, Deferred Healthcare, Economic Crisis, Economic Recovery, Economy Reopening, Elective Procedures, Elective Surgery, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Financial Pressure, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Labor Agreement, Labor Relations, Labor Strike, Labor Union, Leadership Decentralized, Mortality, National Strategy, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Primary Care, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Supply Chain, Telemedicine, Triage, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit, Worker Protection • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/6-months-in-new-normal-hospitals-covid/581524/

Experts say a sustained state of emergency is likely until there is a cure or vaccine for COVID-19.

The first U.S. hospital to knowingly treat a COVID-19 patient was Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington, on Jan. 20. Since then, every aspect of healthcare has been upended, and it’s becoming increasingly clear all parts of society will have to adapt to a new baseline for the foreseeable future.

For hospitals and doctors’ offices, that means building on a major shift to telemedicine, new workflows to allow for more infection control and revamping the supply chain for pharmaceuticals, personal protective equipment and other supplies. That’s on top of ongoing challenges of burned out workers and staff shortages further exacerbated by the pandemic.

Looking out even further, the industry will have to figure out how to treat potential chronic conditions in COVID-19 survivors and, until an effective vaccine is developed, how to manage new outbreaks of the disease.

Experts say U.S. hospitals are generally in a much better position for dealing with COVID-19 now than they were in March, and providers are learning more every week about the best treatments and care practices.

A June survey of healthcare executives conducted by consultancy firm Advis found that 65% of respondents said the industry is prepared for a fall or winter surge, about the inverse of what an earlier survey with that question showed.

“We’ve evolved. We’re in a much better state now than we were in the beginning of the pandemic,” Michael Calderwood, associate chief quality officer at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, told Healthcare Dive. “There’s been a lot of learning.”

But the number of positively identified cases has now topped 4 million, and little political will exists to reinstitute widespread shutdowns even in areas where surges have filled ICUs to capacity. No treatment or vaccine for the disease exists or appears imminent. Testing and contract tracing efforts are too few and remain scattered and uncoordinated.

Whether there is a clear nationwide second wave or smaller surges in various parts of the country at different times, hospitals will need to remain in an effective state of emergency that requires constant vigilance until there is a cure or vaccine.

“Until we’re armed with that, we’re always going to have to be working like this. I don’t see any other way,” Diane Alonso, director of Intermountain Healthcare’s abdominal transplant program, told Healthcare Dive.

The fall will bring additional challenges. Flu season usually begins to ramp up in October, and if the strains in wide circulation this year are severe, that will further stress the health system. While some schools have announced they will be virtual-only for the rest of 2020, others are committed to in-person classes. That could mean increased community spread, especially in college towns. Colder weather that forces people indoors — where the novel coronavirus is far more likely to spread — will also be a complicating factor.

So far, hospitals have been reluctant to once again halt elective procedures, though some have had to, arguing that the care is still necessary and can be done safely when the proper protections are in place. But that doesn’t mean volume will rebound to pre-pandemic levels.

“While we think demand will come back, we’ve seen some flattening on demand in certain aspects that may be the new indicator of the new norm in terms of how people seek care,” Dion Sheidy, a partner and healthcare advisory leader at advisory firm KPMG, told Healthcare Dive.

Accelerating trends to provide care outside hospitals

When the number of COVID-19 cases first surged in the U.S. and stay-at-home orders were implemented nationwide, telehealth became a necessary way for urgent care to continue.

Virtual visits skyrocketed in March and April as CMS and private payers relaxed regulations and expanded coverage. Some of that will be rolled back, but much may persist as patients and providers grow more used to using telehealth and platforms become smoother.

Virtual care can’t replace in-person care, of course, and some patients and doctors will prefer face-to-face visits. The middle- to long-term result is likely to be that telehealth thrives for some specialties like psychiatry, but drops substantially from the highest levels during shutdowns throughout the country.

Other care settings outside of the hospital may see upticks as well, including at-home and retail-based primary and urgent care.

Renee Dua, the CMO of home healthcare and telemedicine startup Heal, said the company has seen virtual visits increase eight fold since the pandemic began in the U.S. and a 33% increase in home visits as people seek to continue care while reducing their risk of exposure to the coronavirus.

“The idea that you do not use an office building to get care — that’s why we started Heal — we bet on the fact that the best doctors come to you,” Dua told Healthcare Dive.

And care does need to continue, particularly vital services like vaccinations and pediatric checkups.

“You cannot ignore preventive screenings and primary care because you can get sick with cancer or with infectious diseases that are treatable and preventable,” Dua said.

Movements toward non-traditional settings existed before anyone had heard of COVID-19, but the realities of the pandemic have shifted resources and spurred investment that will have lasting effects, Ross Nelson, healthcare strategy leader at KPMG, told Healthcare Dive.

“What we’re going to see is there going to be an acceleration of the underlying trends toward home and away from the hospital,” he said.

Some of this was already underway. Multiple large health systems have established programs to provide hospital-level care at home and major employers have inked contracts to have primary care delivered to employees at on-site clinics.

PPE, staff shortages lingering

A key problem for hospitals in the first COVID-19 hotspots, such as Washington state and New York City, was a lack of necessary personal protective equipment, including N95 masks, gowns, face shields and gloves.

Also running low were supplies like ventilators and some drugs necessary for putting people on those machines.

While advances have certainly been made, the country did not have enough time to build up those supply stores before new surges in the South and West. The result has been renewed worries that not enough PPE is available to keep healthcare workers safe.

Chaun Powell, group vice president of strategic supplier engagement at group purchasing organization Premier, said “conservation practices continue to be the key to this” as COVID-19 surges roll through the country. The longer those dire situations continue, the more stress is put on the supply chain before it has a chance to recover.

Premier’s most recent hospital survey found that more than half of respondents said N95s were heavily backordered. Almost half reported the same for isolation gowns and shoe covers.

Calderwood said there has been improvement, however. “We have a much longer days-on-hand PPE supply at this point and the other thing is, we’ve begun to manufacture some of our own PPE,” he said. “That’s something a number of hospitals have done in working with local companies.”

But the ability to manufacture new PPE in the U.S. also depends on the availability of raw materials, which are limited. That means significant advancements in domestic production are likely several months away, Powell said.

Health systems have stepped up the ability to coordinate and attempt to get equipment where it’s needed most, especially for big-ticket items like ventilators. Providers are more hesitant, however, to let go of PPE without the virus being better contained.

The backstop supposed to help hospitals during a crisis is the national stockpile, which the federal government is attempting to resupply. It doesn’t appear to be enough, though, at least not yet, Calderwood said.

“One thing that concerns me is we did have a national stockpile of PPE, and I get the sense that we’ve kind of burned through that supply,” he said. “And now we’re relying on private industry to meet the need.”

Another problem hospitals face as the pandemic drags on is maintaining adequate staffing levels. Doctors, nurses and other front-line employees are in incredibly stressful work environments. The great potential for burnout will exacerbate existing shortages, just as medical schools are still trying to figure out how to continue with training and education.

“Those areas are concerning to our hospitals because our hospitals depend on a whole myriad of medical staff,” Advis CEO Lyndean Brick said. “Whether it’s physicians, nurses, technicians, housekeepers — that whole staff complement is what’s at the core of healthcare. You can have all the technology in the world but if you don’t have somebody to run it that whole system falls apart.”

On top of that is the increase in labor strife as working conditions have deteriorated in some cases. Nurses have reported fearing for their safety among PPE shortages and alleged lapses in protocol. Brick said she expects strike threats and other actions to continue.

Changing workflows

When COVID-19 cases started ramping up for the first time in the U.S., hospitals throughout the country, acting on CMS advice, shut down elective procedures to prepare their facilities for a potential influx of critical patients with the disease. In some areas, hospitals did have to activate surge plans at that time. Others have done so more recently as the result of increases in the South and West.

But few have resorted to once again halting electives. Brick told Healthcare Dive she doesn’t expect that to change, mostly because hospitals have by and large figured out how to properly continue that care.

She trusts any that can’t do so safely, won’t try.

“For the majority of our providers, except in the occasional state where they’re having a real problem right now, I think that we’re going to see elective surgeries still continue,” Brick said. “Because most of our hospitals have capacity right now. They’re able to do this successfully and securely, and it’s really detrimental to patients to not get the care that they need.”

Hospitals rely on elective procedures to drive their revenue, an added motivation to find ways to keep them running even when COVID-19 is detected at greater levels in the community.

Intermountain, based in Salt Lake City, recently performed its 100th organ transplant of the year, ahead of last year’s pace despite the disruption of the COVID-19 crisis.

Alonso, the program director for abdominal transplants, said that while transplants are considered essential services, staff did pause some procedures when electives were halted and have re-evaluated workflow to be as safe as possible to patients, who are at higher risk after surgery because they are immunocompromised.

The hospital developed a triage system to help evaluate what services are necessary based on what level of COVID-19 spread is present in the community and how many beds and staffers are available to treat them.

The system’s main hospital has certain floors and employees designated for COVID-19 treatment. Staff have been reallocated for certain needs like testing and there are plans available if doctors and surgeons need to be deployed to the ICU.

As many outpatient visits as possible are being changed to virtual, but in the building, patients are screened for symptoms and required to wear masks and follow distancing protocols.

At the transplant center, doctors were at one point divided into teams in case someone got sick and coworkers had to self-isolate.

“We went through a dry run where, at the beginning, we shut down incredibly hard to see how we could do it operationally,” Alonso said. Intermountain hasn’t had to do that again, but is ready if such measures become necessary, she said.

Brick and others said that despite the genuinely frightening circumstance brought by the pandemic, hospitals’ responses have been admirable and providers have been quick to adapt. Slow or nonexistent leadership at the federal level, especially in sourcing and obtaining PPE, has been the bigger roadblock.

“Across the board, the whole healthcare industry has responded beautifully to this,” Brick said. “Where our country has fallen down is we don’t have a master plan to deal with this. Our federal leadership is reactionary, and we are not coordinating a master plan to deal with this in the long term. That’s where my concerns are at. My concerns are not at our local hospitals. They have their acts together.”

 

 

 

 

COVID care as a model for care redesign

Posted on by • Posted in Care Redesign, Consumer Preferences, Consumer-Centered Care Pathway, Consumerism, Coronavirus, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Pandemic, Physician, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Hospital, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/9075526b5806/the-weekly-gist-july-24-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

We got an update from the chief medical information officer of one of our member systems about their ongoing progress in expanding telemedicine. Their rate of virtual visits peaked in late April, accounting for over half of all physician encounters. But like most systems, they’ve seen telemedicine visits drop to less than 20 percent of all appointments as physician offices have reopened.

In thinking about how the system will move telemedicine forward, she said, “We’re trying to be intentional and really design a top-notch consumer experience, with quality as the foundation.” They are going specialty-by-specialty, condition-by-condition, to redesign care pathways to optimally blend virtual and in-person care. It’s daunting, but she believes COVID-19 provided a model for how to do this quickly and effectively.

In just a few weeks, many systems stood up COVID management programs in the following way: algorithm-driven, online symptom triage triggers a virtual visit with a doctor. Testing is conducted at new, dedicated locations, to keep doctors’ offices as COVID-free as possible. Patients with concerning symptoms are monitored at home with pulse oximetry and regular check-ins; the same resources are used to ensure discharged patients are recovering well.

It’s the perfect example of how to design a safe, consumer-centered care pathway, using the whole of a health system’s resources. Now the challenge facing doctors and hospitals is: can this process be scaled across the hundreds of conditions that could benefit from a blend of virtual and traditional care?  

 

 

 

Meeting growing consumer demand for “care anywhere”

Posted on by • Posted in Asynchronous Care, Care Anywhere, Consumer Loyalty, Consumer Preferences, Consumer Trust, Consumerism, Emergency Care, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Maintenance Care, Office Visit, On Demand Care, Primary Care, Telemedicine, Urgent Care, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/7d224399ddcb/the-weekly-gist-july-3-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

 

While COVID-19 provided a big push for doctors and health systems to rapidly expand telemedicine visits and other kinds of remote patient interactions, many report that they are now seeing telemedicine visits decline sharply, as in-person visits return.

While it’s natural to be glad that “things are returning to normal”, backing off virtual care is short-sighted, as recent experiences have set new expectations for patients. Survey data shows consumers like using telehealth services, both because they’re more convenient (65 percent) and help avoid COVID infection (63 percent)—and 51 percent say they would continue using them after the pandemic ends.

We’re increasingly convinced that virtual physician visits are just one part of a continuum of care that can be delivered in the convenience and safety of the patient’s home. The graphic below highlights the range of consumer-focused virtual care solutions, from asynchronous chat interactions all the way to hospital care delivered at home.

Health systems that can deliver “care anywhere”—an integrated platform of virtual services consumers can access from home (or wherever they are) for both urgent needs and overall health management, coordinated with in-person resources—have an unprecedented opportunity to build loyalty at a time when consumers are seeking a trusted source of safe, available care solutions.

 

 

Thinking through the new continuum of urgent care

Posted on by • Posted in Chat-Based Care, Consumer Loyalty, Consumer Preferences, Consumerism, Physician, Primary Care, Telemedicine, Urgent Care, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/d594e7a0c816/the-weekly-gist-june-19-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

About ZOOM+Care | On-Demand Healthcare Unlike Any Other

We’ve both received care from of Portland, OR-based Zoom+Care when traveling, and are big fans of its highly efficient, consumer-centric clinic design and urgent care model. We’ve heard reports from across the country that urgent care visits have been slow to rebound as in-person healthcare services have reopened (no surprise that people are reticent to return to a care setting where sitting in a waiting room next to a coughing patient is often part of the experience).

We wondered if Zoom+Care, with scheduled appointments and operations that largely eliminate the wait, had fared any better, and recently we caught up with Torben Nielsen, the company’s CEO, to hear about his experiences across the past three months. As COVID-19 hit in March, Zoom+Care quickly eliminated self-scheduled visits and took many of its 50 clinics offline, requiring all patients to be triaged virtually before any in-person care. The company had a robust chat visit function already in place, and like most health systems, quickly brought video and phone visits online in the first weeks of the pandemic.

They’ve now delivered more than 30,000 virtual visits. With 34 percent of virtual visits coming from patients in markets where Zoom+Care does not have clinics, telehealth has driven rapid expansion into new markets, presenting both opportunities (virtual demand highlights where to site new clinics) and challenges (the need to quickly develop referral relationships for the 10-20 percent of telemedicine patients who would benefit from in-person follow-up).

Telemedicine visits have continued to grow even as self-scheduling was turned back on and in-person volume returned. Nielsen thinks centralization will be a big part of their ongoing virtual care strategy. Over the years Zoom+Care learned that chat visits required a different provider skill set, necessitating a dedicated team—and the same is true of phone and video visits. They’re also exploring what specialty care can be managed virtually, and the best modes to deliver it.

Case in point: it’s no surprise that a visually-oriented specialty like dermatology is well-suited for virtual. But with the grainy images of videoconferencing software, telemedicine falls far short of chat-based care, where a patient can send a high-resolution image and text back and forth with the provider. Given that payment for chat visits falls fall short of video visits, Zoom+Care is now exploring new relationships and economic models to support a multimodal, multispecialty care model.

A fascinating conversation, and confirmation that creating the ideal access platform will require not just layering telemedicine on top of the existing “physical” clinic footprint, but redesigning the entire care journey to create a seamless and connected access experience.

 

 

 

 

Navigating a Post-Covid Path to the New Normal with Gist Healthcare CEO, Chas Roades

Posted on by • Posted in Affordability, Board, Board Assessment, Board Competency, Board Engagement, Brand Loyalty, Branding, Business to Consumer Model, Capitation, Cash, Cash Reserves, Competition, Consumer Loyalty, Consumer Trust, Consumerism, Coronavirus, Corporate Overhead, Corporate Strategy, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Crisis, Crisis Management, Cross Subsidy Model, Debt Service, Decision Making, Demographics, Disruption, Disruptive Technology, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Efficiency, Elective Procedures, Elective Surgery, Fee for Service Reimbursement, Financial Incentives, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Focus, Governance, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Job, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, KPI Dashboards, Labor Spend Management, Leadership, Leadership Alignment, Leadership Trust, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Market Trends, Market Uncertainty, Medical Group, Member Health, Mergers & Acquisitions, Net Income, Nonoperating Income, Objectivity, Operating Expense Reduction, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Physician, Physician Employment, Physician Independent Network (IPA), Physician Multispecialty Network, Physician Practice Management, Price Transparency, Pricing, Primary Care Delivery Model, Primary Care Loyalty, Private Equity, Profit Model, Quality, Quality of Care, Safety, Strategic Alignment, Strategic Leadership, Strategy, Streamlining Operations, Supply Chain, Surprise Bills, Telemedicine, Trust, Trusted Brand, Truth, Value, Value Creation, Value Proposition, Value-Based Healthcare, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Reality, Virtual Visit, Workplace Safety • Leave a comment

https://www.lrvhealth.com/podcast/?single_podcast=2203

Covid-19, Regulatory Changes and Election Implications: An Inside ...Chas Roades (@ChasRoades) | Twitter

Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for Insiders; June 11, 2020

Over the course of nearly 20 years as Chief Research Officer at The Advisory Board Company, Chas Roades became a trusted advisor for CEOs, leadership teams and boards of directors at health systems across the country. When The Advisory Board was acquired by Optum in 2017, Chas left the company with Chief Medical Officer, Lisa Bielamowicz. Together they founded Gist Healthcare, where they play a similar role, but take an even deeper and more focused look at the issues health systems are facing.

As Chas explains, Gist Healthcare has members from Allentown, Pennsylvania to Beverly Hills, California and everywhere in between. Most of the organizations Gist works with are regional health systems in the $2 to $5 billion range, where Chas and his colleagues become adjunct members of the executive team and board. In this role, Chas is typically hopscotching the country for in-person meetings and strategy sessions, but Covid-19 has brought many changes.

“Almost overnight, Chas went from in-depth sessions about long-term five-year strategy, to discussions about how health systems will make it through the next six weeks and after that, adapt to the new normal. He spoke to Keith Figlioli about many of the issues impacting these discussions including:

  • Corporate Governance. The decisions health systems will be forced to make over the next two to five years are staggeringly big, according to Chas. As a result, Gist is spending a lot of time thinking about governance right now and how to help health systems supercharge governance processes to lay a foundation for the making these difficult choices.
  • Health Systems Acting Like Systems. As health systems struggle to maintain revenue and margins, they’ll be forced to streamline operations in a way that finally takes advantage of system value. As providers consolidated in recent years, they successfully met the goal of gaining size and negotiating leverage, but paid much less attention to the harder part – controlling cost and creating value. That’s about to change. It will be a lasting impact of Covid-19, and an opportunity for innovators.
  • The Telehealth Land Grab. Providers have quickly ramped-up telehealth services as a necessity to survive during lockdowns. But as telehealth plays a larger role in the new standard of care, payers will not sit idly by and are preparing to double-down on their own virtual care capabilities. They’re looking to take over the virtual space and own the digital front door in an effort to gain coveted customer loyalty. Chas talks about how it would be foolish for providers to expect that payers will continue reimburse at high rates or at parity for physical visits.
  • The Battleground Over Physicians. This is the other area to watch as payers and providers clash over the hearts and minds of consumers. The years-long trend of physician practices being acquired and rolled-up into larger organizations will significantly accelerate due to Covid-19. The financial pain the pandemic has caused will force some practices out of business and many others looking for an exit. And as health systems deal with their own financial hardships, payers with deep pockets are the more likely suitor.”

 

 

 

 

My telemedicine visit was a little too “normal”

Posted on by • Posted in Consumerism, Coronavirus, Physician, Primary Care, Telemedicine, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/d594e7a0c816/the-weekly-gist-june-19-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

In Depth: COVID-19 and Telemedicine in N.H. | New Hampshire Public ...

Needing a quick prescription refill, I logged on to my first post-COVID telemedicine visit with my primary care physician this week—and while I appreciated being able to meet with my doctor from my living room, the experience revealed the kinks in the way many practices are delivering virtual care. To schedule, I filled out a form on the website, which triggered a follow-up call from practice staff the next morning.

Straightforward, but far from an “Open Table” level of simplicity. The technology worked just fine: a single click on an emailed link launched Microsoft Teams (which happened to already be installed on my laptop), and I was met by a medical assistant dialing in from an exam room in the practice. She took my information, said the doctor would be joining shortly, and left.

So I waited. And waited. The camera was on, and I was left looking at the blood pressure cuff, otoscope and ophthalmoscope hanging on the wall—literally the same view I would’ve had sitting on the exam table (I just needed to don a paper gown and turn the thermostat down ten degrees to completely replicate the experience of being there in person). I waited some more—22 minutes to be precise, as the webinar screen had a count-up clock recording just how long I was looking at the wall.

My doctor is a great clinician, and surely was running behind because she was spending time with a patient who needed her attention. Once she came into the room, the visit was efficient—and we talked about the challenges of transitioning to virtual care. I was happy to cut the practice some slack since I know them, but it would have been really underwhelming if I were a new patient—honestly, I probably wouldn’t be a repeat user. And it fell far short of what is needed to create a differentiated virtual care offering.

Like everything else “digital” in our lives, we want telemedicine to be easy, integrated, efficient and on time—and our expectations for experience are set outside of healthcare. One thing was made painfully obvious: providers need to make sure not to replicate the frustrating parts of traditional office visits, as they look to create a lasting, sustainable virtual care platform.

 

 

 

 

Telehealth could grow to a $250B revenue opportunity post-COVID-19: analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Access, Access & Quality of Healthcare, Chronic Care Management, Clinical Outcomes, College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Consumer Preferences, Consumerism, Coronavirus, Emergency Care, Health System, Home Health, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicaid, Medicare, Necessary Care, Office Visit, Outcomes, Pandemic, Patient Satisfaction, Physician, Physician Practice Management, Primary Care, Provider Satisfaction, Telemedicine, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/telehealth-could-grow-to-a-250b-revenue-opportunity-post-covid-mckinsey-reports

virtual visit

With the acceleration of consumer and provider adoption of telehealth, a quarter of a trillion dollars in current U.S. healthcare spend could be done virtually, according to a new report.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer adoption of telehealth has skyrocketed, from 11% of U.S. consumers using telehealth in 2019 to 46% of consumers now using telehealth to replace canceled healthcare visit, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s COVID-19 consumer survey conducted in April.

McKinsey’s survey also found that about 76% of consumers say they are highly or moderately likely to use telehealth in the future. Seventy-four percent of people who had used telehealth reported high satisfaction.

Health systems, independent practices, behavioral health providers, and other healthcare organizations rapidly scaled telehealth offerings to fill the gap between need and canceled in-person care. Providers are ready for the shift to virtual care: 57% view telehealth more favorably than they did before COVID-19 and 64% are more comfortable using it, according to McKinsey’s recent provider surveys.

Pre-COVID-19, the total annual revenues of U.S. telehealth players were an estimated $3 billion, with the largest vendors focused on virtual urgent care.

Telehealth is now poised to take a bigger share of the healthcare market as McKinsey estimates that up to $250 billion, or 20% of all Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial outpatient, office, and home health spend could be done virtually.

The consulting firm looked at anonymized claims data representative of commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid utilization.

The company’s claims-based analysis suggests that approximately 20% of all emergency room visits could potentially be avoided via virtual urgent care offerings, 24% of healthcare office visits and outpatient volume could be delivered virtually, and an additional 9% “near-virtually.”

Up to 35% of regular home health attendant services could be virtualized, and 2% of all outpatient volume could be shifted to the home setting, with tech-enabled medication administration.

Many of the dynamics that have helped to expand telehealth adoption are likely to be in place for at least the next 12 to 18 months, as concerns about COVID-19 remain until a vaccine is widely available.

Going forward, telehealth can increase access to necessary care in areas with shortages, such as behavioral health, improve the patient experience, and improve health outcomes, McKinsey reported.

Providers and patients are concerned that recent federal and state policies expanding access to telehealth will be rolled back once the emergency period ends.

Industry groups, including the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), are calling on lawmakers to ensure the changes enacted by Congress and the administration become permanent.

McKinsey’s research indicates providers’ concerns about telehealth include security, workflow integration, effectiveness compared with in-person visits, and the future for reimbursement.

“We call on Medicare and all other insurers to continue to fund telehealth programs and work collaboratively on coverage and coding to lessen provider burden. We cannot go back to pre-COVID telehealth; instead, we must go forward. Patients will demand it and providers will expect it,” CHIME CEO and President Russell Branzell said in a recent statement.

Telehealth also is drawing bipartisan support. Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged Congress to “continue to support this expansion and codify the administration’s changes to support the health needs of the American people,” in a recent news release.

Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Illinois, is introducing a bill directing HHS Secretary Alex Azar to oversee a telehealth study looking at the technology’s impact on health and costs, Politico reported in its newsletter today.

 

Taking advantage of the telehealth opportunity

Healthcare providers and payers will need to take action to ensure the full potential of telehealth is realized after the crisis has passed, according to McKinsey.

There continue to be challenges as providers cite concerns about telehealth include security, workflow integration, effectiveness compared with in-person visits, and the future for reimbursement. There also is a gap between consumers’ interest in telehealth (76%) and actual usage (46%). Factors such as lack of awareness of telehealth offerings and understanding of insurance coverage are some of the drivers of this gap.

“The current crisis has demonstrated the relevance of telehealth and created an opening to modernize the care delivery system,” McKinsey consultants wrote. “Healthcare systems that come out ahead will be those who act decisively, invest to build capabilities at scale, work hard to rewire the care delivery model, and deliver distinctive high-quality care to consumers.”

McKinsey outlined steps industry stakeholders should take to drive the growth of telehealth.

 

Payers: Health plans should look to optimize provider networks and accelerate value-based contracting to incentivize telehealth. Align incentives for using telehealth, particularly for chronic patients, with the shift to risk-based payment models.

Payers also should build virtual health into new product designs to meet changing consumer preferences, This new design may include virtual-first networks, digital front-door features (for example, e-triage), seamless “plug-and-play” capabilities to offer innovative digital solutions, and benefit coverage for at-home diagnostic kits.

 

Health systems: Hospitals and health systems should accelerate the development of an overall consumer-integrated “front door.” Consider what the integrated product will initially cover beyond what currently exists and integrate with what may have been put in place in response to COVID-19, for example, e-triage, scheduling, clinic visits, record access.

Providers also should build the capabilities and incentives of the provider workforce to support virtual care, including, workflow design, centralized scheduling, and continuing education. And, health systems need to take steps to measure the value of virtual care by quantifying clinical outcomes, access improvement, and patient/provider satisfaction. Include the potential value from telehealth when contracting with payers for risk models to manage chronic patients, McKinsey said.

 

Investors and health technology firms: These players also can support the new reality of expanded telehealth services. Technology firms should consider developing scenarios on how virtual health will evolve and when, including how usage evolved post-COVID-19, based on expected consumer preferences, reimbursement, CMS and other regulations.

Investors also should develop potential options and define investment strategies based on the expected virtual health future. For example, combinations of existing players/platforms, linkages between in-person and virtual care offerings and create sustainable value. Investors and technology companies also can identify the assets and capabilities to implement these options, including specific assets or capabilities to best enable the play, and business models that will deliver attractive returns.

 

 

 

 

How Many More Will Die From Fear of the Coronavirus?

Posted on by • Posted in Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Deferred Healthcare, Emergency Care, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Fear, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Office Visit, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Physician, Preexisting Conditions, Preventable Disease, Preventative Care, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Social Distancing, Telemedicine, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured, Unintended Consequences, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

Fear of contracting the coronavirus has resulted in many people missing necessary screenings for serious illnesses, like cancer and heart disease.

Seriously ill people avoided hospitals and doctors’ offices. Patients need to return. It’s safe now.

More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. Beyond those deaths are other casualties of the pandemic — Americans seriously ill with other ailments who avoided care because they feared contracting the coronavirus at hospitals and clinics.

The toll from their deaths may be close to the toll from Covid-19. The trends are clear and concerning. Government orders to shelter in place and health care leaders’ decisions to defer nonessential care successfully prevented the spread of the virus. But these policies — complicated by the loss of employer-provided health insurance as people lost their jobs — have had the unintended effect of delaying care for some of our sickest patients.

To prevent further harm, people with serious, complex and acute illnesses must now return to the doctor for care.

Across the country, we have seen sizable decreases in new cancer diagnoses (45 percent) and reports of heart attacks (38 percent) and strokes (30 percent). Visits to hospital emergency departments are down by as much as 40 percent, but measures of how sick emergency department patients are have risen by 20 percent, according to a Mayo Clinic study, suggesting how harmful the delay can be. Meanwhile, non-Covid-19 out-of-hospital deaths have increased, while in-hospital mortality has declined.

These statistics demonstrate that people with cancer are missing necessary screenings, and those with heart attack or stroke symptoms are staying home during the precious window of time when the damage is reversible. In fact, a recent poll by the American College of Emergency Physicians and Morning Consult found that 80 percent of Americans say they are concerned about contracting the coronavirus from visiting the emergency room.

Unfortunately, we’ve witnessed grievous outcomes as a result of these delays. Recently, a middle-aged patient with abdominal pain waited five days to come to a Mayo Clinic emergency department for help, before dying of a bowel obstruction. Similarly, a young woman delayed care for weeks out of a fear of Covid-19 before she was transferred to a Cleveland Clinic intensive care unit with undiagnosed leukemia. She died within weeks of her symptoms appearing. Both deaths were preventable.

The true cost of this epidemic will not be measured in dollars; it will be measured in human lives and human suffering. In the case of cancer alone, our calculations show we can expect a quarter of a million additional preventable deaths annually if normal care does not resume. Outcomes will be similar for those who forgo treatment for heart attacks and strokes.

Over the past 12 weeks, hospitals deferred nonessential care to prevent viral spread, conserve much-needed personal protective equipment and create capacity for an expected surge of Covid-19 patients. During that time, we also have adopted methods to care for all patients safely, including standard daily screenings for the staff and masking protocols for patients and the staff in the hospital and clinic. At this point, we are gradually returning to normal activities while also mitigating risk for both patients and staff members.

The Covid-19 crisis has changed the practice of medicine in fundamental ways in just a matter of months. Telemedicine, for instance, allowed us to pivot quickly from in-person care to virtual care. We have continued to provide necessary care to our patients while promoting social distancing, reducing the risk of viral spread and recognizing patients’ fears.

Both Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic have gone from providing thousands of virtual visits per month before the pandemic to hundreds of thousands now across a broad range of demographics and conditions. At Cleveland Clinic, 94 percent of diabetes patients were cared for virtually in April.

While virtual visits are here to stay, there are obvious limitations. There is no substitute for in-person care for those who are severely ill or require early interventions for life-threatening conditions. Those are the ones who — even in the midst of this pandemic — must seek the care they need.

Patients who need care at a clinic or hospital or doctor’s office should know they have reduced the risk of Covid-19 through proven infection-control precautions under guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We’re taking unprecedented actions, such as restricting visiting hours, screening patient and caregiver temperatures at entrances, encouraging employees to work from home whenever possible, providing spaces that allow for social distancing, and requiring proper hand hygiene, cough etiquette and masking.

All of these strategies are intended to significantly reduce risk while allowing for vital, high-quality care for our patients.

The novel coronavirus will not go away soon, but its systemic side effects of fear and deferred care must.

We will continue to give vigilant attention to Covid-19 while urgently addressing the other deadly diseases that haven’t taken a pause during the pandemic. For patients with medical conditions that require in-person care, please allow us to safely care for you — do not delay. Lives depend on it.

 

 

 

Charting the rebound of physician office visits

Posted on by • Posted in Consumerism, Coronavirus, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Office Visit, Physician, Physician Practice Management, Quality of Care, Telemedicine, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f2774a4ad1ea/the-weekly-gist-may-22-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

MultiBrief: Telehealth is keeping doctors, patients connected in ...

As patients begin to return to doctors’ offices, we were intrigued to read an analysis out this week from the Commonwealth Fund that provides a first glimpse into the pace of the recovery. Researchers from Harvard University and healthcare technology company Phreesia analyzed data from 12M visits at over 50,000 physician practices, finding that in-person visits had declined nearly 70 percent by mid-April, compared to pre-pandemic levels.

Behavioral health providers, medical specialists and primary care practices maintained the most volume, and procedural specialists were the hardest hit. Many practices deployed telemedicine quickly, but even with those added encounters, total visits were still down by nearly 60 percent. While visits are starting to return, it’s likely that physician practices are in for a long, slow rebound. Telemedicine as a percentage of all visits peaked in late April, and by mid-May, in-person visits had reached 55 percent of pre-pandemic levels.

Even if virtual volumes pull back from their COVID high, we’re likely to see telemedicine play a much more expansive role moving forward. Dr. Rushika Fernandopulle, CEO of Iora Health, shared his company’s learnings from their COVID-19 response, predicting that ultimately 70-80 percent of physician encounters could be virtual, necessitating a need to reorganize care delivery around populations, instead of practices.

Expect the next year to be a reckoning as changes in payment and regulations, combined with a heated marketplace for virtual care, continue to shift the balance between in-person and virtual care.