BHA 3112 FPX Assessment 3 Healthcare Trend Presentation

Healthcare Trend Presentation

Student Name

Capella University

BHA FPX3112

Instructor’s Name

Submission Date

Slide 01

Hello my name is ________ and in this presentation I will be talking about the healthcare policy, convergence of technology, reimbursement technology and telemedicine. Since then, the process of care delivery to patients has been revolutionized through the use of telemedicine tools, including delivering care outside of the hospital (via video calls or mobile health apps and home health monitoring. Innovative telemedicine will be beneficial for patient outcomes as it will be able to diagnose and treat patients more quickly.

It will also be a more cost-effective solution because unneeded hospital visits would be reduced and access to care, especially in the areas of underserved and rural areas, will be increased. In this presentation, I will detail specific policies, reimbursement and advancements in the area of telemedicine that may be leveraged to further streamline processes of better healthcare. This presentation will help explore how these synergistic worlds can be used in implementing telemedicine. With Telehealth, there will be improved patient care and cost-effective health care.

Current Innovative Trend in Healthcare: Telemedicine

Slide 02

Cost-effective: Using telemedicine to improve the health expenditure of patients and health care practitioners can help to reduce costs. Telemedicine will be a tremendous labour saver, since many cases will be addressed or done outside of the ER. The patients can recover of money as they do not have to go to the hospital, and hospitals can get money to optimize resources and to minimize the number of patients attending at the hospital’s ED. Furthermore, it has been found out that introducing telemedicine in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic does not even result in a decrease in the number of visits to minor conditions, but it can reduce the burden on the work of the health care system and the level of functioning of the system as a whole.

In addition to opportunities associated with access and cost reduction, telemedicine can also enhance the quality of care as it will shift healthcare delivery to a more episodic process of monitoring and/or follow-up. Patients who use remote patient monitoring devices that can detect issues at an earlier stage can have the most important measurements – including vitals, glucose levels and other health issues – remotely monitored.

The possible idea of telemedicine also involves another much more convenient interaction as well as patient training, a specific therapy to the patients rather than making patients more attentive to the therapy and effective in communicating with the care providers and patients. To sum up, Telemedicine can be considered one of the remarkable inventions that facilitates patient-clinician transitions, contributes to financial benefits and impacts the extension of clinical outcomes in the current health care landscape. Policy Impact on Telemedicine: The CARES Act and Telehealth Expansion

Slide 03

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020 could be considered one of the most crucial policies that resulted in the usage of telemedicine. It is a federal act, that was aimed at coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, with certain specifications about the growth of telehealth services in the short-term. The CARES Act has provided an opportunity for health care professionals to provide oral care to patients, wherever they are located.

The CARES Act has given policies on telehealth reimbursements to Medicare beneficiaries, and has paved the way to ensure virtual appointments, remote patient monitoring, and any other field of telehealth. Another argument for telemedicine technology’s potential to be readily adopted in health care systems is that the CARES Act would provide more flexibility to the regulations and greater funding.

The implementation of telemedicine has proved to be of huge significance from an economic point of view on the health sector. The CARES Act provided reimbursement rates for tele health visits (same as in person treatments). Consequently, the process turned to be financially viable and more patients were able to utilize telemedicine. Telehealth results in a reduction in the number of visits going into the clinics and hospitals, which would not only save the operation cost but also the risk of infection to the staff and the patients who visit the clinics/hospitals would be lower.

Further, it reduced the use of expensive emergency services and resulted in more frequent and longer survival of those who did not deteriorate with the illness, both acute and chronic. Overall, the CARES Act has demonstrated that smart legislation can help prevent the risk of innovation, ease the burden of using new technologies and streamline the healthcare process in general and the cost of healthcare in particular.

Impact of the CARES Act on Healthcare Economics

Slide 04

The CARES Act, 2020, has ushered in a big change in the healthcare economy, which affects both healthcare service delivery and healthcare payment. The policy improved not only the economic viability of hospitals and health care facilities in meeting their own telehealth care needs, but also provided a means for health care professionals to be compensated based on mileage for in-person treatment. Incorporating telemedicine technology has improved patients’ outcomes.

 A major benefit for the hospitals/Clinics was that the overhead associated with a face-to-face service was not placed on their practitioners. This meant that they did not have to do so many things in person, such as personnel, maintenance, personal protective equipment, etc.

The low out-of-pocket cost for patients demonstrated an economic impact on telemedicine. Another argument in favour of telemedicine was the need to save money since unjustified instances of hospitalization and emergency department visits were minimized using telehealth. This approach, which is system-wide, ensures continuity of care for people with chronic diseases and will help to “stop the cycle” of long-term complications and costs to care. On the whole, the CARES Act illustrates how lawmaking can influence the healthcare sector by providing incentivized funding for technologies that can support healthcare providers to be more efficient in their operations and save money for patients and providers.

Impact of Reimbursement Methods on Telemedicine

Slide 05

Reimbursement policies have the potential to influence telemedicine technology adoption and use in practice. Historically, remuneration and reimbursement for telehealth services were restricted, and it didn’t encourage many providers to provide telehealth services. The CARES Act has developed reimbursement policies that encourage the use of telemedicine, and a long-term CARES Act permanent policy by CMS to reimburse for remote clinical services has led many of the providers and health systems to consider telemedicine. Such reimbursements for remote health care have spurred hospitals and medical centers to put money into quality telehealth and remote technologies, create online platforms, and train and hire their providers.

By allowing physicians to provide high-quality medical care to millions of Americans, reimbursement for telemedicine has the potential to improve the quality, efficiency and access of health care. Telehealth has empowered services to reach people where they are without regard to limitations such as geographic, monetary or other factors that would be difficult for the individual to get timely health care. Less visits to HOSP, ED, urgent care and Physician’s offices result in cost savings. Telemedicine can also enhance provider behaviour in response to reimbursement policy in this area – utilization of technology to meet the population’s health needs and health status.

Patients will also have a greater incentive to utilize more telemedicine services, knowing that the covered services and their costs will likely follow their insurance coverage – meaning they will likely see them without having to pay out-of-pocket or cover deductibles. The combination of telemedicine’s reimbursement policy opportunities and the limitations on reimbursement of traditional methods of care delivery are one reason telemedicine is an important part of our changing health care system.

Impact of Technology on Telemedicine

Slide 06

Telemedicine is a relatively new technology-based innovation which has revolutionised the health delivery paradigm. Advancing technologies offer opportunities for patients to access a provider remotely via high-definition (HD) video conferencing and many other innovative communications tools that helps keep patients and health providers aligned, such as secure messaging and mobile health applications. With the help of technology like remote patient monitors, patients can use a wearable to monitor details like their heart rate, blood glucose and blood pressure and share this information with their doctors and health providers. As physicians have the ability to identify and respond to health issues earlier on via technology, engagement will help improve health outcomes.

New technologies, such as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze the patient’s data, for predicting health risks, for recommending individual treatment options and for improving the accuracy of a diagnosis could impact future developments in telemedicine. It is also expected that virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will also be beneficial for physical therapy, surgical training and even clinical training (). With the expansion of 5G networks to fit later use, telehealth will be enhanced and hastened. Moreover, new ways of reducing expenses, improving patient care and boosting the efficiency of health care professionals will be created within telemedicine.

Slide 07

Policy Recommendation to Advance Telemedicine

There needs to be Policies in place to support Telemedicine. But, in order to be innovative, it is hard to recognize that providers and patients will be losing some policies that were implemented in the original telemedicine policy (such as permanent and regular reimbursement of telehealth under Medicare, Medicaid and privately insured) services. Much of the CARES Act has been done away with in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Act also made several changes to the telehealth services for specific diseases in the current COVID-19 pandemic and temporarily expanded the number of payers that already covered telehealth by calling the COVID-19 pandemic a national public health emergency. When telehealth is a permanent method of reimbursement, providers can help drive that change by ensuring that healthcare organizations that are reimbursing for telemedicine invest in telemedicine infrastructure, training and technology that helps to drive down disparities in care delivery over the long run.

In the long-term, telehealth reimbursements will be remarkable as far as outcomes and cost of healthcare are concerned, putting providers back to pay for the cost of providing virtual care, while patients reap continued and seamless access to healthcare services. Using telehealth to treat chronic diseases, early detection and treatment of acute diseases, and to reduce emergency room visits, would lead to lower costs of all health care. Use of remote monitoring technology, AI-powered analytics, patient engagement products are among other incentives to invent remote monitoring systems to improve care delivery quality and efficiency. This policy will need to take between 2-3 years to be implemented, depending on the new extensions in the area of health. Legislative activity could be taken at the federal level, with pilot testing underway to try out the program and then eventually act legislatively to establish the program after cost effectiveness and effectiveness of the program in patient care has been demonstrated.

Conclusion

Slide 08

As an illustration, legislation, technology, and the reimbursement system can all be used to improve patient care, lower costs, and make the delivery of healthcare more efficient—all of which are the hallmarks of telemedicine. Further expansion of the permanent reimbursement of telehealth and technology innovations will all benefit this aspect—Access to Care as well as healthcare economics. While cost-effective and sustainable, telemedicine is beneficial for patient and practitioners as well.