Healthcare and the Internet

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Patients and providers alike should be utilizing the internet in their pursuit of healthcare.  The first point of connection – the patient and the provider meeting – might be the most important for both parties.

keyboard_stethoscopeIf you are a patient, and you need to connect with a provider for a particular condition, how do you choose from the many providers out there?  If you’re a provider and you want to be able to connect with new patients, how do they find, and then select you?  Here are just a few options:

Insurance Company Lists

If a patient is fortunate enough to have access to health insurance, the insurance company maintains a list of providers who participate in their insurance plans.  These lists may be available in hard copy form, or more commonly, on the insurance company’s website.  Patients can use these lists to narrow down their choices based upon name recognition or geographic location.  Providers should regularly confirm all their practice locations are properly listed for all the insurance companies with whom they participate, and promptly update any inaccurate or insufficient listings.

Internet Searches

There are MANY sources of provider information available online.  Patients today can post their experiences, both good and bad, on one of dozens of healthcare opinion and experience websites, such as healthgrades.com, vitals.com and ratemds.com, to name just a few.  Providers, what information is prospective patients seeing about YOU when they do an internet search?

Word of Mouth

Often the first choice for a patient is a provider who comes with a glowing recommendation from a friend or family member.  Sometimes, the recommendation is so compelling, the patient doesn’t care if the provider is in their insurance network or not, and they are even willing to pay out of pocket and seek reimbursement from the insurance company after services are rendered.  The same word of mouth system can have the exact opposite effect, where a bad experience can steer a patient away from a prospective provider.  Providers, ask yourselves honestly, what are your current and prior patients telling their friends and family?  And keep in mind, unsatisfactory experiences with office and billing staff can negatively reflect on otherwise good medical care!

Please direct your health care reimbursement questions or topics you would like to know more about to Sue@HabaneroInc.com.

Telehealth – Great Concept, But Can You Get Paid?

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I’ve always got interesting stuff coming across my desk.  This week it’s Telehealth Services.  The idea is not new, but insurance plans potentially paying for the service is.

telehealthThe concept of Telemedicine is that the health care system could save considerable money, and patients could experience a heightened level of support for particularly delicate conditions, if the patient could be accessed remotely by the provider.

Obviously, this won’t work well for physical therapy and other hands on healthcare modalities, but certain treatments and conditions, such as continuous oxygen, patient history of non-compliance, high risk of emergency care interventions, medication management, etc. lend themselves to this new technology.

As technology has gotten more sophisticated and less expensive to deploy, telehealth services have become more appealing to all parties – patients, insurance companies and providers of healthcare services.

Medicare has issued very comprehensive guidelines, and many Medicaid agencies have adopted CMS’ guidelines as well.  Commercial insurance carriers address it in their provider manuals, but always with a litany of caveats as to when, if and how much they might pay.  And the documentation, coding and reimbursement rules are likely to trip up providers as they attempt to participate in this new healthcare delivery system.

The good news is that if this technology is able to deliver as promised, we could be welcoming a new breed of medical monitoring devices in our homes in the very near future.