Dan Mountain – Page 2 – Secure Telehealth

Customer Success Stories

By Dan Mountain | September 11, 2018

Experts Say “Great Execution” is required in order to make telehealth work. Read below how several Secure Telehealth Customers are executing telehealth programs successfully.

Jon Day is the executive director of Blue Valley Behavioral Health in Nebraska, While using Secure Telehealth, they have grown into the largest psychiatric provider in Nebraska.

“With any new service delivery system, it needs to be implemented wisely and having a particular strategy driving it. Secure Telehealth has allowed us to increase the number of clients we see, expand services, provide services in new environments, increase the productivity of our staff and increase our overall revenue.”

For more from Blue Valley, click here

Annie Mills is the Director of Nursing for New Oakland Family Services with 9 locations in and around Detroit, Michigan. New Oakland has been using Secure Telehealth to provide telehealth software for over two years. She and her providers have seen tremendous benefit to their organization by utilizing the telehealth software. Please take a second and read some of the reviews from their providers and please contact us if you think we can be of assistance in a similar way.

Specialty care without waiting – “Telehealth improves access to care for patients that would otherwise have to wait or not be able to receive specialty care. I can service my pediatric consumers and those in need of addiction care with much less wait periods.”

A better environment for many mental health patients – “Patients who are shy or nervous, but comfortable and familiar with gaming and interacting in a digital fashion, feel more relaxed. It can be intimidating for many people to be in a doctor’s office and they may feel too overwhelmed by the circumstance to reveal their real thoughts. But, sitting in a room by themselves gives them their own territory and personal space. “

Adam Raulerson from the Laurelwood Hospital in the Northeast Georgia Health System

“We have used Secure Telehealth for 6 years now…very user friendly and effective for our use. It is User friendly for both my staff and the remote hospitals we support. Secure Telehealth requires minimal to no IT support. I installed and I test the equipment/software monthly. It is Cost effective. The most affordable product that meets our needs. Initially, there seemed to be upgrades way too often. That has changed and less upgrades are required.”

“We have seen Increased timely access for patient care and Reduction in overall cost of providing our services.”

Dr, James Greenblatt from Walden Behavioral Health in Massachusetts shares how Secure Telehealth has helped his practice grow.

Secure Telehealth was the “easy option and the best way to get started and maintain lower cost and investment as we grew our programs”

“I was skeptical as a Psychiatrist of what kind of relationship you can have with a patient – would they be honest? Would they be able to read nonverbal cues? And I really feel that I can provide a good assessment – Everything from empathy to emotions and tears to a comprehensive exam is definitely do-able in Telehealth”

Telehealth News and Notes Week of 9/4/2018

By Dan Mountain | September 4, 2018

Here we are back again for issue number two of Telehealth News and Notes, Your weekly guide to what is new in Medical Technology and What others are doing that you may want to try.

In Germany, Researchers have found the they can use Telemedicine and it increases life expectancy among patients with heart disease. The summary says “Telemedical interventional management reduces hospitalizations and prolongs the life of patients with heart failure. Researchers have shown that these findings apply equally to patients in rural and in metropolitan settings.” The patients in this study used many medical devices with remote monitoring but even just using video conferencing to meet more with Medical professionals can have a significant impact on quality of care.

2. Want to help yourself or others improve mental health? Study says to Exercise with a group or play team sports. Exercise has proven time and time again to help mental as well as physical health, but extra attention has been paid to the importance of being in community. Citing Zumba classes as “the best exercise for mental health” Researchers claim that it is the social and communal aspects of the classes that tip the needle. Click here to read more.

Interested in learning more about Telehealth services and talking with experts about how to implement telehealth into your organization? Call Secure Telehealth at 412-837-9320. See you next week!

Telehealth News and Notes week of 8/27/2018

By Dan Mountain | August 27, 2018

Welcome to the newest feature on the website. Here we will be providing a weekly round up of news and notes regarding implementation of telehealth services across the 50 states and beyond. In the past week, a few changes have been made allowing for increase utilization of telehealth in various areas.

In a move to address the opioid abuse crisis, Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner has signed into law a bill requiring the state’s Medicaid program to cover behavioral and mental health services delivered by telehealth and telemedicine. See Full story here.
“Trained or not, family doctors and pediatricians are on the front lines of mental health care” This article discusses the pcp or the pediatrician as the first line of defense in the mental health crisis. With less than adequate training, many Doctors are being forced to treat and help children and adults with a variety of possible mental health concerns. Through the use of telehealth software, a patient from the comfortable surroundings of his or her regular Doctor’s office can consult with a Psychiatrist to see of further treatment would be necessary. Adding telehealth services would be an inexpensive way to take the burden off of the PCPs or pediatricians and a Psychiatrist that markets his or her services to an office like this would be in high demand.
How can we help our most vulnerable patients? Click here for more from “The Second Wave” in Michigan

Thank you! Check back for more next week from Secure Telehealth

“Better than Face to Face”

By Dan Mountain | August 21, 2018

Health Care Organizations utilizing telehealth software often wonder, “Will it work as well as our face to face appointments?” or “Will we have to sacrifice the quality of our patient care?” They are concerned that the experience of meeting with a provider through a video conference will be intimidating for a patient or uncomfortable for the provider. Many organizations using Secure Telehealth for their HIPAA – compliant video conferencing have been pleasantly surprised. Not only are we hearing that when using our telehealth software, the sessions are just as effective, in many cases we are hearing that the telehealth session are even better than face to face. Here are some examples:

“Patients who are shy or nervous, but comfortable and familiar with gaming and interacting in a digital fashion, feel more relaxed. It can be intimidating for many people to be in a doctor’s office and they may feel too overwhelmed by the circumstance to reveal their real thoughts. But, sitting in a room by themselves gives them their own territory and personal space.”

Annie Mills, Director of Nursing at New Oakland Family Centers in Michigan

“Telehealth access has helped me be able to see clients more regularly and consistently because we don’t have to wait for face to face openings or problems related to clients travelling long distances to be seen. I have also experienced cases where clients have been able to be more open, honest, and forthcoming on telehealth relative to face to face contacts.”

Jack Carlson LIMHP, Mental Health Therapist at Blue Valley Behavioral Health

Want to hear more about how adding Telehealth services can help your organization? Or hear more about what we do at Secure Telehealth? Contact Us today!

Telemedicine and the Coming Physician Shortage

By Dan Mountain | August 16, 2018

Thank you very much to Altrius for preparing this white paper. I read it this morning and wanted to share it. The numbers are compelling. Rural areas will be hit hardest and the article explains how many areas are already being stretched thin. We have helped many organizations combat this issue by using our telehealth software and we can help you as well. Click here to give the article a look: Physician_Shortage_WhitePaper

Feeling your pain part 3: Connect your patients to the best Providers

By Dan Mountain | August 13, 2018

The very best providers, psychiatric or otherwise, are in high demand. Meanwhile, according to the 2010 census and hrsa.gov their are 46.2 million Americans living in non-metropolitan statistical areas who have very limited access to these “rock star” providers. That is…UNTIL NOW!!!

Below is just one example of what an organization in a rural area can do using Secure Telehealth Software.

From Jon Day – Executive Director of Blue Valley Behavioral Health

Blue Valley Behavioral Health is Nebraska’s largest rural behavioral health provider. We have 12 different offices throughout Southeast Nebraska and the geographic distance between them has been a difficulty since we started almost 50 years ago. Obtaining various provider types to cover such a large rural area, coordinating services amongst the different providers and making sure high quality treatment was being delivered was the triple threat we experienced on an ongoing basis. We started providing our Medication Management services via Secure Telehealth one Saturday morning once a month about four years ago. In combination with our EMR we proliferated to providing Telehealth services throughout all our 12 offices which included Medication Management, Mental Health and Substance Abuse services to both adults and youth. We went from seeing about 100 people the first year with Secure Telehealth to 1,000 people now per year.

We have now become Nebraska’s largest telehealth provider with behavioral health services. Not only have we increased our services and the number of people seen with telehealth, we have also expanded into new sites such as rural hospitals, jails, law enforcement and schools. We have completely expanded our services with Secure Telehealth and were able to do so without any high dollar grants or special funding. We did it with our own finances because it was affordable and easy to implement. Jim Mountain from Secure Telehealth has helped us execute our Telehealth vision and have made believers out of many people.

In addition to the telehealth services we provide throughout our office and alternative locations, here are a few interesting telehealth occurrences we have experienced:

We have one of our counselors who worked for us still providing mental health and substance abuse services in 3 of our offices…from Minnesota where she lives.
We had a substance abuse counselor providing a Prevention Class who was very resistant to using telehealth (via Secure Telehealth) and tended to avoid all things related to computers or technology. She is now providing her Prevention Class in her regular office but several of her class participants are now joining in from several different states throughout the US. In fact, she often has more people participating in her class via telehealth than in person.
We provide Crisis Response Services throughout rural Nebraska and work with many different county law enforcement agencies and hospitals. We had several law enforcement agencies initially refuse to do telehealth services because they didn’t think it worked. Now they initiate more services because they know telehealth is viable service.

With any new service delivery system, it needs to be implemented wisely and having a particular strategy driving it. Secure Telehealth has allowed us to increase the number of clients we see, expand services, provide services in new environments, increase the productivity of our staff and increase our overall revenue.

Jon Day LIMHP

Executive Director

Blue Valley Behavioral Health

Brian Henry from Decatur Morgan Hospital

By Dan Mountain | August 10, 2018

Jim from Secure Telehealth had an amazing conversation with Brian Henry, from Decatur Morgan Hospital in Decatur, AL this morning. We sat down and talked about how Telehealth has been used to improve his organization tremendously. Secure Telehealth has helped them increase patient access, save money, meet the demand and help more people. Give us a couple of minutes and give it a listen and contact us to see how we can help your organization today!

Feeling your Pain part 2: Increasing and Improving your patient’s access to mental health services.

By Dan Mountain | August 3, 2018

We all have images in our head of what an emergency room is like. Stressful and tense are two words that come to mind. People could be in the emergency room seeking treatment for almost anything. My previous two experiences in the emergency room range from a barely broken finger to a spider bite that was so bad the Doctors and Nurses had to sedate me because I couldn’t stop writhing in pain. It was in while I was in college that I barely broke my finger playing basketball and my memories of the emergency room include people who came in after me getting called back to be seen and taken care of earlier than I was. I guess that finger just wasn’t that big of a deal. The spider bite, however, had me being seen almost immediately and nurses and Doctors attending to me and my pain right away.

The staff in emergency rooms are used to dealing with challenging patients and tense situations but there are certain situations that can still make their job more challenging. When a patient enters an emergency room with a mental health issue and an assessment from a Psychiatrist is needed, it can add greatly to the stress level of the staff and affect the quality of care that the patient receives. If the emergency room is lucky enough to have access to a Psychiatrist, then they could be seen right away and that patient gets the help that he or she needs in a timely manner. The reality is that many emergency room locations do not have a Psychiatrist available because they may be located in a rural area where there is a provider shortage or it just might be that a Psychiatrist isn’t working that night. This is where Telehealth comes in.

A nurse or staff member, through a video-conference on a laptop or tablet or even a smartphone can talk to provider in a remote location and the patient can be assessed right away. The patient gets a professional assessment right away and is assigned the proper treatment options more quickly. Our clients have contracts with Psychiatrists in different locations who may be on call at a variety of locations in the same night. Our HIPAA Compliant video conferencing software is simple and does not require any heavy duty or expensive equipment, it can be run on your basic laptop or iPad. Using Telehealth has alleviated the pain of Emergency rooms not having to pay the expense of staffing a Psychiatrist around the clock and increased the quality of care for that patient because they can make the proper decisions much more quickly.

Lakeside Hospital in Memphis, TN is a case study in the effectiveness of using our Video Conferencing in the Mental Health and Emergency room areas. Please take a minute and read their testimonial below and give us a call to see how we can help your situation and alleviate your pain.

Increasing patient access – Lakeside Hospital in Memphis

“Secure Telehealth has changed the way we interact with patients in a positive way. Since implementing this product, we have dramatically decreased the time patients wait for their behavioral assessments and their treatment, expediting their transportation to the facility that best fits their treatment needs. Getting the patient the help they need is what we do, Secure Telehealth helps us get it done faster.”

-Wilson Foy

For more case studies, browse Our Customer Success Stories page!

Feeling your Pain Part 1

By Dan Mountain | August 1, 2018

People from all over the United States come to us and they share many of the same problems. They have some of the same frustrations and are fighting the same fights. Perhaps some of these problems apply to you and and it is time to see if implementing a telehealth program can help those problems. At Secure Telehealth we feel your pain because we have helped so many others through it and we can do the same for you.

Spending too much money paying people to drive around all day?

Example 1: Last April, at the National Behavioral Health Convention, or NATCON, a woman came up to me who ran a rural mental and behavioral health clinic with multiple locations in Southwestern Virginia. She started telling us about her organization and then she hit us with this statement, “I’m tired of paying my providers to drive around.” She was experiencing the pain of watching the wasted money go away every month as the reimbursements for gas and travel and the hourly wages kept piling up. We understood completely because other groups that we work with have shared the same problem and we have been able to help them with solutions.

In most states, the patient still has to be in an appropriate facility to be seen and for billing to get reimbursed by Medicare or Medicaid, so they still get to their local clinic. The pain reliever is that the provider can now stay in one office and help the patients at the satellite locations without being there in person. Providers see more patients in a day, Patients get seen faster, the clinic improves the no-show rate and no more time and money is wasted while providers drive around. For more information, contact Secure Telehealth today!

What are people doing with our Telehealth Software?

By Dan Mountain | June 20, 2018

Secure Video Conferencing software is being used in so many different ways. This is just a small sampling of the ways that some of our clients are using Secure and HIPAA-compliant video conferencing software to meet their needs.

Community Mental Health Clinics and other rural health clinics - "I can't get a provider to come to my town" and "I'm tired of paying my Doctors to drive around" are two quotes that we hear regularly. In order to solve those problems, a significant amount of clinics are using Telehealth services to assist in matching the correct providers to patients in rural and other underserved areas.
Emergency rooms - Emergency rooms nationwide are overcrowded and expensive. A patient can be seen at an emergency room more quickly if Telehealth Doctors are on call and it can save money because a hospital does not need to keep as many doctors staffed.
Law Enforcement - Police officers in squad cars have our software loaded on iPads and when they come across a situation where they need Mental Health or Emergency consultations they can reach those providers right away.
Prisons and other Corrective Facilities - Rather than hiring Doctors to travel, patients in correctional facilities can be seen through Telehealth services.
Psychiatry in Urban Areas- Cities provide their own barriers from long work hours, to traffic problems and long wait times to see a provider, Many clients are using Telehealth to address those barriers in all types of situations including Medicare and Medicaid patients, private insurance patients and private pay patients.

And so much more!