Childhood is a funny age. If we ask you to peak in the rear view mirror of your life, what would be the first memory that you’d reminisce? There must be loads of things to look back to, and why not—it is a golden phase in a small, tiny movie of life, but this little fragment of it is unusual.
It frames the rest of our life for these experiences mold us as a human being. Now the nature experiences (both good and bad) might vary from one person to another, but it all sums up our lifestyle—there’s no hiding that.
One very crucial aspect of our lifestyle, known as oral health, is something that shapes up our health and routine. We don’t just walk into adulthood with perfectly straight teeth and immediately start brushing them, flossing the slits, and rinsing our mouth. Our parents had to put us in Invisalign and create these habits through months of routine that was bred into our veins and whisked into our daily grind.
Dental health is no joke, and it has been seen that many kids with improper dental hygiene land into a sticky pool of trouble for long times to come. This problem needs to be prevented before the time comes that it has to be cured. Kids have huge issues with their teeth, and the reason is simple—it’s not a cakewalk to stop them from gluttonous food and sticky, gooey, and sugary stuff. That’s not the only problem, however, as it goes beyond that.
Taking kids to the dentist’s is crucial. They have to be comfortable about the fact that they’ll be coming to these visits now and then and anything else shouldn’t stop them—even if it is nervousness and fear of getting things inside one’s mouth.
It is essential to take kids to the dentists. It keeps the teeth shining and wise, and these values become the cornerstone of splendid dental and oral hygiene. But that’s not the case for a child, for whom a dentist’s visit is nothing short of a nightmare. Think of it this way—a kid lying on a cold, cushiony chair, in a room full of extraordinary people wearing masks and poking, whizzing and smoking out weird instruments that look like tools for torture. These vibes are exceptional and why not—funny people, strange noises, and unusually cold sensation between the teeth.
Do you know that once your child’s baby teeth start to grow and eventually fall out, you’ll have to take them for at least 10 trips to the dentist (yes, 10!). All of these trips can get expensive, so it’s a good idea to take out health insurance that covers dentistry to help cover the cost. Of course, you’ll want to choose the best insurance plan for your whole family, so take a look online and learn more here. But the question is, how do we take care of kid’s dental health in the first place?
Here are a few ways which ensure that your kid isn’t scared of dentists anymore and that whenever the dentist’s date comes in, s/he is ready for the appointment with all smiles and no tears. Continue Reading
By Steve Simmons, marketing and business analysis manager, eCare Vault.
Care coordination by definition is a strategy that is focused on bringing together the multiple parties of a patient’s care team to knock down barriers of communication in order to enable the best outcomes for your patients.
However, by doing so, your healthcare organization stands to see significant savings on your bottom line. Here are a few ways we’ve seen care coordination can nurture the financial health of your organization:
Reducing Unnecessary Additional Treatments
When providers aren’t on the same page the result is additional tests and treatment for patients that could have been avoided otherwise. Gaps of information in patient care are common since providers across separate organizations rarely communicate with each other on what types of care they are providing for their patients.
As a patient, very rarely will you go against the advice of a physician or specialist, as their job is to provide you with the care to live as healthy of a life as possible.
This drives up costs exponentially across the entire continuum of care, and subsequently, providers and patients end up spending more for treatment that could be avoided in the first place. Proper coordination across multiple organizations can help patient care team members collaborate on the exact types of care and testing that is being administered to patients, helping to streamline the care that patients receive and reduce costs across altogether.
Reducing Physician Burnout To Preventing Costly Staff Turnover
With less communication and collaboration, physicians, nurses, practitioners, caregivers, and allied health professionals are forced to work and operate in silos, the consequences of which can affect not only the financial health of the clinic but the type of care patients receive.
The added stress and decrease in personal achievement for all roles mean less motivation and more cognitive impairment, which leads to a lesser quality of care, mistakes in care, and worse outcomes for patients. For organizations, burnout eventually results in staff either quitting or being fired for inadequate performance, which means recruiting, hiring and training new staff.
The costs associated with this can range from $2,500 or even more than $100,000 for higher-level positions within the clinic, hospital, home healthcare agency and every place in between.
Care coordination helps prevent this, as it empowers meaningful working relationships both internally and across organizations, helping multiple care team members strive toward the goal of providing the best care for the patient or client.
It allows your staff to break free from redundant work that can be accomplished in a fraction of the time, streamlines workflow management, and reduces operational inefficiencies across the board – giving your employees the power to operate at the top of their license, saving your organization thousands to millions of dollars of budget in the process.
There is much hype with regards to the use of blockchain technology in the field of healthcare due to its distributed ledgers. Many organizations have disappointed with the use of blockchain because of incomplete or partial knowledge. According to the experts, the blockchain development solutions are the future of the global healthcare industry. Many experts are involved in the experiment to implement the technology in the various healthcare departments. The following are the various predictions offered by the blockchain according to the experts in future.
The wait is over. Let’s jump into the interesting predictions for the growth of blockchain from expert’s perspective
Consent management
Blockchain will become an important part of the management in the healthcare industry to enable the sharing of information. Data is currently stored in the electronic health record system based on various individuals. Blockchain technology will enable the storage of the patient’s data which will enable the data exchange and treatments and privacy preferences on the blockchain. This will allow data to be accessed by the various stakeholders and officials.
Tokenization of the non-cash assets
A token can represent anything like real estate information, a physical object and also an outcome. Ruban Selvanayagam of UK real estate company Property Solvers comments: “many industries with huge asset bases are exploring blockchain technology and smart contracts to create broader efficiencies whilst keeping things completely secure.” The tokens will be able to help the officials manage the various results of the healthcare industry from the end of the institutions as well as patients. Tokens are used to reduce the burden of the experts and also help enhance the patients care as well as medications.
Making micropayments
Under the value-based care system, the providers will reimburse the wellness of the patients not for the quality but the care of the patients. So, it will become easy to use the process to make universal payment interfaces that will help patients make micropayments. This will also help organizations achieve the desired goals or outcomes and enhance innovations. Similarly, the tracking of the co-operative pays and the share of the medical expenses could be able to simplify the blockchain payment interface. It provides the opportunity to the organizations to buy the outcomes from the service providers.
Provider credentialing
To store and maintain the directories of the healthcare industry is a very critical task. The organizations have to keep the data up to date and also have to face the complex issues related to the patient’s data. To handle and manage the paperwork, the personnel need proper training and should possess the ability to understand the various aspects and important features. But blockchain provides a user-friendly environment that can simplify the usage of the system.
Electrical usage reductions
The blockchain technology will help you to reduce the electricity requirements, and it also helps enhance the speed and scalability of the system in the big concerns. It increases the transaction speed to enhance efficiency and reduce the cost of the transactions. Blockchain provides proof of work approaches to lessen the consumption of the electricity in data collection, storage, processing and other tasks.
If you want to know about the use cases that blockchain revolutionized healthcare industry, stay tuned until the end.
In many cases, it becomes difficult to track the various activities of the medical suppliers like pharmacies. The Blockchain approach will help healthcare track the products from the suppliers to the specific receivers whether they are healthcare institutions or the patients. This helps the healthcare institutions to ensure the integrity of the various products as well as different pharmacies.
The healthcare circles in the United States are reeled up by debates around the need for price transparency.
The federal agencies are coming up with regulations.
Healthcare associations are weighing in their concerns.
Physicians, patients, and economists – everyone is articulating the pros and cons in a rather plausible manner.
Wait. What has triggered this rush towards transparency?
To begin with, the healthcare costs across the country have gone from “extreme” to “unreal” in the last two to three decades. A regular MRI scan, for instance, costs twice as much as it does in Switzerland, another country where healthcare is considered “notably expensive.”
Worse still, one simply cannot tell how much money they might end up paying at a healthcare facility at any given point. A broken bone can take thousands of dollars to get fixed or at no cost at all – depending on a dozen factors that can vary drastically with each patient.
Frankly, there is no single moment that burst the bubble around the soaring healthcare costs. In many cases, what hurt patients more than the total cost of a procedure is the out-of-pocket expense that they are made to pay. The focus today has shifted to one fundamental question – how much money is justified for a given care procedure; and are we entitled to know it or not?
Cut to 2019, a movement to make care prices transparent is shaking the establishments across the US.
What is the government saying?
The government has taken the onus of ensuring transparency in healthcare prices. Last month, the White House issued an executive order aimed at making payers and providers publish the cost of each procedure available at their facility. The government believes that this step can get a long way in making patients take more informed decisions regarding their health and eliminate the opacity regarding the cost associated with such processes beforehand.
The intent here is to provide patients “access to useful price and quality information and the incentives to find low-cost, high-quality care,” something that can be a giant leap forward in the direction of enabling cost-effective care.
Binary Fountain released the findings of its 2019 “Healthcare Consumer Insight & Digital Engagement” survey. With the goal of getting an updated view into how patients search, evaluate and share their experiences with their providers, the survey, conducted by OnePoll and commissioned by Binary Fountain, shows patients’ continued dependence on online ratings and review sites and increased trust in social media to make informed healthcare decisions.
Patients Depend on Online Reputation More Than Ever When Choosing a Physician
The survey shows that consumers rely heavily on online ratings and reviews when choosing a provider. According to this year’s survey results:
75% of respondents are influenced by online rating and review sites when selecting a provider.
In fact, 60% of consumers check the ratings and reviews of a provider, even when referred by another provider, up 44% since 2018.
80% of respondents believe online provider ratings and reviews are “somewhat” to “very” reliable.
Additionally, only 9% of respondents in 2019 selected they “do not use any websites or online platforms” when selecting a provider. By comparison, 48% of respondents selected this answer in 2017, representing an 80% increase in Americans using some form of online website or platform to choose a provider.
Of the respondents that have utilized ratings and review sites when searching for a provider, 53% selected Google as a primary source, followed by a hospital and/or facility’s website (48%), Facebook (45%), Healthgrades (42%) and Instagram (28%).
More Consumers Are Using Social Media for Provider Searches
This year’s survey results also found that consumers are increasingly utilizing social media channels to find providers. For instance, 51% of consumers use social media platforms to search for a provider, a 621% increase from Binary Fountain’s 2017 survey results.
In particular, Facebook saw a 264% increase from 2018 to 2019 in its use to help patients find a provider.
Other social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat have seen a 550% and 365% increase, from 2018 to 2019, respectively.
Likewise, specialized listing sites like U.S. News & World Report (536%), ShareCare (454%) and ZocDoc (359%) continue to gain more traction year-over-year.
More Patients Are Sharing Their Healthcare Experiences through Social Media
When asked “what online platform(s) have you ever used to share your provider/hospital experiences,” respondents selected Facebook (57%) as the leading platform, followed by Google (49%) and a tie between hospital and/or facility website and Healthgrades at 40%. The 2019 survey results also revealed:
All social media platforms, besides Facebook, have more than tripled the amount of provider/hospital online feedback they had received in 2017.
In fact, Google has seen a 319% increase in sharing provider/hospital experiences on its platform since 2017.
Similarly, Instagram has seen a 506% increase in sharing provider/hospital experiences since 2017.
Finally, Facebook has seen a 170% increase in sharing provider/hospital experiences on its platform since 2017.
Furthermore, only 5% of respondents mentioned they “don’t share feedback on online platforms” in 2019, a stark contrast to the 69% of respondents that selected that answer in 2017.
Healthcare Consumers Seek Digital Scheduling
The survey shows that consumers are increasingly looking to digital devices to schedule appointments. The survey results revealed:
A majority (60%) of Americans say they have used an online search engine to look for a provider, a 60% increase from the 2017 survey results.
In fact, 29% of respondents have booked appointments directly from a provider’s website, a 100% increase from 2018.
Making appointments by phone has decreased by 45% since 2018. However, 47% of consumers still make appointments by phone, making it the leading method for booking healthcare appointments today.
Use of voice search capabilities to find physicians has made a significant leap with 30% of respondents selecting voice assistant devices (i.e., Siri, Alexa, Google Home, etc.) as a source, an increase of 756% since 2018.
Based on the above findings, it is critical for healthcare providers to verify and ensure their contact information is accurate and up-to-date across all online listings and third-party websites.
LocumTenens.com announced the results of its study, Locum Tenens Engagements: Strategies, Usage and General Attitudes. The 2019 survey measures the perception and attitudes of hundreds of clinicians and healthcare executives and administrators across the United States about healthcare industry issues, priorities and staffing solutions.
Positive Perception of Locum Tenens Staffing
A central theme in the research is the progression of locum tenens from solely a short-term measure to address gaps in staffing, to now a core part of the long-term strategy within today’s healthcare organizations. Healthcare executives and administrators alike reported strong regard and consideration for long-term locums assignments within their facilities over the next 12 to 24 months.
According to the study, improving quality of care and the patient experience, as well as meeting increased demand for patient services and retaining physicians, were identified as the top strategic priorities for healthcare organizations over the next 12 to 24 months. Locum tenens helps healthcare facilities—whether large health systems, regional hospitals, rural facilities or clinics—address all of these.
“The role of locum tenens has evolved from an option that in the past was used during times of crisis to now a foundational part of a healthcare organization’s strategic business model,” said Chris Franklin, president of LocumTenens.com. “Locum tenens directly addresses many current challenges, including making medical specialists accessible to rural areas, enabling fractional staffing on demand to meet peak workforce needs, and giving clinicians flexibility and control of their schedules.”
Key takeaways from the Locum Tenens Engagements: Strategies, Usage and General Attitudes study include:
The American Medical Association (AMA) announces the release of the 2020 Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code set containing identifiers and descriptors assigned to each medical, surgical, and diagnostic services available to patients. Trusted since 1966 as the health system’s common language, the CPT code set enables accurate reporting, measurement, analysis, and benchmarking of medical services and procedures across the nation’s entire health care system.
“An annual editorial process draws insight from the entire health care community to produce practical code enhancements to CPT that support advancements in technology and medical knowledge available for the care of patients,” said AMA president Patrice A. Harris, M.D., M.A. “This capacity ensures reliable codes are available for burgeoning tech-enabled services and affirms CPT as the trusted code set for efficiently sharing accurate information about medical services and procedures. That’s why we believe CPT serves both as the language of medicine today and the code to its future.”
There are 394 code changes in the 2020 CPT code set, including 248 new codes, 71 deletions, and 75 revisions. In making these updates, the CPT Editorial Panel considered broad input from physicians, medical specialty societies and the greater health care community.
Among this year’s important additions to CPT are new medical services sparked by novel digital communication tools, such as patient portals, that allow health care professionals to more efficiently connect with patients at home and exchange information. CPT has responded by adding six new codes to report online digital evaluation services, or e-visits. These codes describe patient-initiated digital communications provided by physician or other qualified health care professional (99421, 99422, 99423), or a non-physician health care professional (98970, 98971, 98972).
Other coding additions to CPT were prompted to better support home blood pressure monitoring that aligns with current clinical practice. CPT added codes (99473, 99474) to report self-measured blood pressure monitoring. The goal of these codes is to expand reporting pathways for physicians across the country who take care of a diverse set of patients that have varying degrees of access to care.
“With the advance of new technologies for e-visits and health monitoring, many patients are realizing the best access point for physician care is once again their home,” said Dr. Harris. “The new CPT codes will promote the integration of these home-based services that can be a significant part of a digital solution for expanding access to health care, preventing and managing chronic disease, and overcoming geographic and socioeconomic barriers to care.”
Whether it’s using FaceTime to catch up with friends across the country or web conferencing in the workplace to save the time and cost associated with business travel, video has become pervasive in almost every aspect of our everyday life. But there is one major exception: healthcare. While there is great promise in telehealth, the healthcare industry has been slow to adopt video solutions – even when the demand clearly exists.
Three-quarters of consumers say they want the same experience in healthcare that they get from other businesses, according to “The Consumerization of Healthcare” survey by Econsultancy. About 60 percent of individuals under age 55 say they would consider it “life changing” or “very useful” to use video chat instead of going for a routine in-person visit with their provider. And an equal number indicate they would be very likely to switch to a provider that offered video appointments and online booking, among other consumer-friendly options.
So what’s holding healthcare providers back from integrating video into their practices? Much of the hesitancy revolves around reimbursement and perceived complexity.
Under Medicare rules, telehealth services are typically reimbursable only if they are provided for beneficiaries who live in certain rural or underserved areas. And for non-Medicare patients, reimbursement is not uniform; the amounts depend on the local jurisdictions and what individual insurers will pay. While providers truly want to provide more remote services, the inconsistencies and varying rules for how they can be reimbursed have resulted in providers taking a cautious approach to implementing these offerings.
But worrying only about what can be billed is also short-sighted. The value in telehealth goes far beyond that. Instead of focusing only on reimbursement, consider the big picture. Factor in the ease and convenience for both the patient and the provider. Think about how telehealth can improve health outcomes by increasing patient engagement, not just access to care. Start using telehealth now and take advantage of reimbursements that are available today, depending on local payers and their rules. This positions practices — and patients — to be familiar with the technology and to capture additional reimbursements that will inevitably become available in the future.
A Focus on Simplicity
Early adopters of telehealth solutions have tended to overbuy for what they need, focusing on point solutions, and likely aren’t considering if, or how, they integrate with other productivity solutions used within the practice. Other providers are scared off by the high price tag of dedicated telehealth platforms, as well as the complexity for both patients and practitioners of using them for remote service offerings.
Childhood is a funny age. If we ask you to peak in the rear view mirror of your life, what would be the first memory that you’d reminisce? There must be loads of things to look back to, and why not—it is a golden phase in a small, tiny movie of life, but this little fragment of it is unusual.
Care coordination by definition is a strategy that is focused on bringing together the multiple parties of a patient’s care team to knock down barriers of communication in order to enable the best outcomes for your patients.
There is much hype with regards to the use of blockchain technology in the field of healthcare due to its distributed ledgers. Many organizations have disappointed with the use of blockchain because of incomplete or partial knowledge. According to the experts, the blockchain development solutions are the future of the global healthcare industry. Many experts are involved in the experiment to implement the technology in the various healthcare departments. The following are the various predictions offered by the blockchain according to the experts in future.
The American Medical Association (AMA) announces the release of the 2020 