Non-face-to-face care means patients will be able to receive care without leaving their homes.
In 2015, there will be a key change in the way clinicians manage their patients with chronic illness – allowing for non-face-to-face care – and thus ushering in a new era for population health management. Clinicians who spend at least 20 minutes of non-face-to-face care management services during a 30-day period will be paid $41.92 a month per qualifying beneficiary (those with two or more chronic conditions) under a proposal by CMS. This will keep patients in their homes and with their caregivers, and will be a huge leap forward in the way that patients and their clinicians communicate and collaborate on chronic care treatment.
With the new health care models transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based care, and the shift from inpatient to more outpatient services, home-based chronic care management is a natural evolution. Chronic disease accounts for the bulk of all health care costs in the U.S., and 7 out of every 10 Americans who die each year (more than 1.7 million people) die of a chronic disease.
An analysis conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the profile of diseases contributing most heavily to death, illness, and disability among Americans has changed dramatically during the past several decades. Today, chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes are among the most prevalent, costly, and preventable of all health problems. The ability to manage patients in between appointments and acute episodes through non-face-to-face care will be a real game changer in the industry, both from a financial perspective for providers and payers, but more importantly, for patients who are able to receive care from the comfort of their own homes.
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As data from medical devices and apps become more ingrained into the patient health care experience, payers and providers need to adopt technologies that can aggregate information from disparate data sources and empower clinicians to quickly and easily identify and address gaps in care. By empowering patients to better manage their care in between office visits, and providing evidence-based, actionable information to clinicians, chronic care management programs can support lasting changes in patient behavior, while increasing productivity and controlling health care costs at the provider level.
A man wearing a Fitbit activity tracker uses the related iPhone app.
With mobile applications at their fingertips, patients are now able to get more involved with their health care. Patients are able to access their medical records from anywhere, track their vitals with portable devices, and monitor their health-related habits with Web-based applications on smartphones. The FDA estimates that 500 million people worldwide will use a health app by 2015.
Patients becoming active participants in their health care can be a very effective method to help improve population health. Delivering Clinical Decision Support and evidence-based recommendations in real time through mobile apps can provide the necessary information for clinicians to implement more timely interventions for their high-risk and at-risk patient populations. Further, mobile apps integrated with CDS and analytics could deliver helpful reminders, behavior modification suggestions, and strategies for improving user health.
Applying analytics to patient-generated data can be very powerful. With that said, clinical information still needs to be evaluated by both specialists and psychologists. Data plus clinician input could affect positive changes in their patients’ behavior, and also reinforce and support these behaviors for permanent change.
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Technology will continue to be the linchpin to the success of home-based chronic care programs. Health care organizations need to support bidirectional communication to impact patient behaviors and deliver vital information back to the clinician. Therefore, patients not only have to enter their information, but providers need to use these apps to directly communicate with their high-risk patients when they are between appointments. Providers who are able to view patient generated data in real time, and send timely messages back to the patients, can provide acute care when it is needed most.
Estimates predict that by 2017, the global mobile health and wellness app market will be worth $26 billion. Most of the revenue, about 84 percent, will come from related services and products like wearables, such as Fitbit, Jawbone and Google Glass. Mobile application adoption and new regulations for non-face-to-face treatment are the beginning of the positive health care paradigm shifts already in progress. Patients are now thinking more like consumers when it comes to their health and wellness, so providers and payers must find new ways to engage patients to better manage their own care, and help keep them well.
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