SR Health Blog

Summary

Community Health Center, Inc. is Connecticut’s largest healthcare provider committed to caring for uninsured and underserved populations. CHC is focused on improving health outcomes for its more than 145,000 patients as well as building healthy communities. It delivers service in over 200 locations statewide, offering primary care in medical, dental, and behavioral healthcare. To continue to be successful in serving their diverse patient population, they need to be able to effectively and efficiently communicate with patients, which was a challenge until they signed on with Solutionreach in 2019.

You’ve been doing your best to serve patients through telehealth and modified face-to-face care. However, many patients have been unable to have their elective procedures and preventive care screenings. Now, you need to get ready to see them. Planning and communication will be critical to do this effectively. Here are some steps to help.

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown telehealth and virtual services into the spotlight. Prior to March 2020, the complexity of billing, lower reimbursement, limitations on use, and privacy and security concerns stood in the way for many providers. Now, much of that has changed for the duration of the pandemic, and it is likely that some of these changes are here to stay.

As the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated in March 2020 and the need for reliable and effective patient-provider communication became more important than ever, was your patient communication what it needed to be? Or were there some unfortunate holes in your strategy that need to be fixed now before a second wave of COVID rears its head?

Summary
After consolidation in 2018, Community Care Physicians, P.C. (CCP) was faced with the challenge of consolidating not only organizations but also technology. One of their first goals was to get every practice on the same patient communication system. "It wasn't just that we wanted everyone on the same software, we wanted something that integrated with Allscripts," explains Craig Dreher, Chief Information Officer at CCP. "We needed a better tool than what we had, but there were other factors too. We wanted reminders with voice and text that were flexible, and we wanted real-time, two-way text as well. Of course, the cost was a factor, too." 

This article was originally posted on the Solutionreach blog and id shared here with the permission of the editor.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued regulatory guidance only 24 hours after our webinar, How to "See" Patients During a Pandemic and Get Paid for It, resulting in more changes to telemedicine reimbursement for Medicare. Although these changes are specific to Medicare, the announcement may prompt other payers to make further changes as Medicare reimbursement policy is a bellwether for our industry. Here is a list of the key points in the guidance related to medical practices:

Even before the coronavirus hit life as we knew it, healthcare was already stretched and trying to figure out how it was going to be able to offer personalized care to patients. The reality in healthcare is that there are not enough doctors, nurses, or staff to be able to offer the kind of personalized care and attention that patients need and desire.  It’s easy to see that there are more of them (patients) than there are of us (clinicians).

As the U.S. gets close to one million cases and surpasses 50,000 deaths, everyone continues to struggle with this new world we live in. We will keep providing a regular update on news that impacts hospitals and health systems.

On May 5, Elizabeth Woodcock, practice management expert and founder of the Patient Access Collaborative, will present a free webinar on seeing patients with virtual tools and how to get paid for it.