Tag: reimbursement
What’s holding you back? Overcoming Obstacles in your Telehealth Practice

What’s holding you back? Overcoming Obstacles in your Telehealth Practice

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I read this interesting article today from Forbes. The writers, Gary Price M.D. and Tim Norbeck outline the promises of how telemedicine services will help in the future but also explain some of the reasons people are abandoning it now or not even starting yet.  The promises have been documented on this site and others extensively, but these are a few of the reasons why people aren’t ready to commit quite yet.

  1. Providers are finding it very hard to get paid.  This is tough for sure.  Every state has different laws regarding whether or not Medicaid will pay for the session and how much.  It seems that some insurance companies will pay for some services and some won’t without any real explanation.  With our research and experiences providing software in all 50 states, we can help you navigate through the confusion.  For many of our customers, we provide more than just software, but we act as a “consultant” to help them be sure that they have a successful Telehealth practice.  Even of you’re not a client, please contact us below or give us a call.  We often find that we learn from each other when discussing the latest in the Medical Technology industry.
  2. Providers and Health organizations are concerned about Privacy.  We take this very seriously, Secure Telehealth software does not store any health information.  Providers and Health organizations continue to use their own EHR and scheduling software. This makes a telehealth session get treated exactly the same as an in person session which already has security protocols in place.  We understand HIPAA and will sign a Business Associate Agreement with the clients which allows us to provide the software and offer technical support.
  3. Another obstacle, not specifically mentioned in the article, is that people are afraid of the technology. They could think that it would be too complicated or they give up because there are too many technical problems.  At Secure Telehealth, we take care of the technology so you can focus on helping people.  At no additional cost, We will assist in setting up each location and train all of the providers and presenting nurses.  Even when providers or patients are in their own homes we can test their system so that everyone can be confident that the meetings will be go smoothly.  Lastly, even if we haven taken all precautions, sometimes something still goes wrong, A computer is muted, or there was a software update, or an operating system changes or one of any number of other technical problems occur and we will answer the phone and help you right away so that a session is not missed.

The Health care Revolution is coming, I hope nothing is holding you back.

Image from Healthleadersmedia.com

 
Customer Success Stories

Customer Success Stories

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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 8/27/2018

Telehealth News and Notes week of 8/27/2018

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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.

  1. 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.
  2. “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.
  3. 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”

“Better than Face to Face”

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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

Telemedicine and the Coming Physician Shortage

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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

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

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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

Brian Henry from Decatur Morgan Hospital

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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.

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

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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!

Benefits of adding Telehealth Services to your Practice

Benefits of adding Telehealth Services to your Practice

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A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the Ohio Psychiatric Physicians Association conference on adding Telehealth service to their practice.  Our company, Secure Telehealth, is a leader in helping practitioners begin a telepractice or add telepractice to their current business model.  I talked with many practicing Psychiatrists, young and old, male and female and all seemed to agree that adding telehealth services to their practice would be a great benefit to them.  At Secure Telehealth, we make it easy for you.  We provide the software and set it up at any number of locations.  Since we have already helped hundreds of providers implement this in their professional lives, we have the experience to help act as a consultant as well to help you implement telehealth in your practice, and we offer technical support wherever the software is being used.  Contact us to get your Telehealth Practice started!

Major takeaways from the Keynote Speaker, Dr. Robert Caudill:

  1.  It is easy!  our software is easy to use and can be used on any internet device, PC, MAC, tablet, smartphone, etc.
  2. Insurance reimbursement isn’t great, but getting better.  Every state has different laws and procedures concerning reimbursement for telehealth services.  Contact us to learn more about the procedures where you are.
  3. Prescribing is getting better as well.  Laws of been passed limiting the prescribing of medications through electronic means to curb widespread painkiller abuse.  These laws, generally speaking, do not affect Psychiatry and other disciplines.
  4. It is the future!  Use of telehealth services has grown and will continue to grow exponentially.