Online consultation is a big part of the electronic healthcare (E-Health) industry. At present, experts are investing a lot of resources into this industry for its overall improvement. Digital health technology is currently going through a revolution. AI and machine learning technologies are now being used to process medical data a lot faster and more effectively. Such technological advances have made online consultations more feasible and readily available to the masses.
There is no doubt that online consultations with Reliant are playing a big part in the healthcare sector. And people should also know that these sessions will soon become the future of healthcare. Thus, people need to learn how and why they should accept this modern form of medical checkups.
Here is why online consultations will soon become the future of the healthcare industry.
On-Demand Service
Most doctors do not provide on-demand service to their patients. To consult with them, you must find a free slot in their schedule, book an appointment, and then they will be able to handle your queries. This is a common scenario in the healthcare industry.
However, with online consultations, doctors can free up their schedules a lot faster. And while you will still have to make an appointment, you do not have to wait a day or two to consult with them. Online consultations also allow doctors to handle more patients than they could with in-person sessions. So all in all, these online sessions help make room for an on-demand service model for the healthcare sector.
The medical field is always looking for ways to improve the care they provide. In recent years, there have been many advances in technology that are now being implemented into clinical settings. These changes will help make both doctor’s and patient’s lives easier. Here is a look at some of these new technologies and how they are improving patient care by making it more efficient, personalized, and effective.
Next Generation CT Scanners
The latest next generation CT scanners can take a 3D picture of the inside of your body with significantly more detail than a standard CT scanner can. This is because they provide images with less noise and have improved resolution, making it easier to diagnose many disorders better than the older technology ever could.
Cybersecurity has been a major concern facing many digitalized businesses. Hackers have developed more sophisticated ways to breach security systems and steal essential data from businesses. Such security issues may cause significant financial loss and bring a business down to its knees.
Healthcare is one of the sectors that has been hard hit by cybercrime. This is due to the sector’s adaptation of technological advancement used in areas like storing patients’ data. Unfortunately, while the technology has positively impacted the provision of services, it’s also created an opportunity for hackers to attack and steal information. As a result, healthcare becomes an easy target for cybercriminals due to the nature of their information system.
Reasons For Cyberattacks On Healthcare
As stated, the healthcare sector isn’t immune to cyberattacks and other forms of security breaches from criminals. These attacks are being targeted due to the many loopholes that the sector has.
Here are some of the reasons why healthcare is targeted:
The Password Problem
One of the major concerns affecting healthcare is the lack of good passwords. An explanation of the password problem is when healthcare workers don’t set strong passwords on their devices for fear of forgetting them. In turn, they end up using weak passwords, such as their phone numbers or names.
This makes it easy for attackers to breach security and steal important information. In addition, colleagues can guess simple passwords, and they can use them to access your accounts. The password problem affects many businesses, as well as individuals. You should, therefore, be creative with your password and make it unique.
Lucrative Medical Records
Medical records always contain important information that could be lucrative to hackers when they sell them. Such information includes names, contact information, and credit card numbers when patients pay bills through bank cards. The attackers can then use these pieces of information to directly attack the patients or sell them to other people.
Because some medical facilities aren’t well-protected from security breaches, the patients’ data aren’t safe. Therefore, attackers use these loopholes to launch attacks on people.
By Devin Partida, technology writer and the editor-in-chief, ReHack.com.
The medical industry’s growing reliance on digital technologies has come with some increased risks. That became painfully evident for thousands of patients in the wake of a recent ransomware attack on CaptureRX, a healthcare administrative service provider.
On February 6, hackers accessed sensitive patient data from multiple CaptureRX clients, affecting at least 1 million people. The company started investigating after noticing unusual activity, and by February 19, it could confirm that someone had stolen patients’ personally identifiable information (PII). CaptureRX started alerting affected clients on March 30, and the full scope of the incident is still unclear.
Health IT’s Growing Ransomware Problem
This is far from the first instance of a ransomware attack on a health IT company. Ransomware as a whole has become much more common in the past few years, and medical businesses are more at risk than most. Hospitals have more to lose in these attacks, given the sensitive nature of their data, so a successful breach could be more profitable for hackers.
In 2020 alone, there were 92 ransomware attacks against healthcare organizations, affecting more than 18 million patient records. That represents a 60% increase over 2019 in the number of attacks and a 470% increase in records affected. Since 2016, these attacks have cost the industry more than $31 billion.
The CaptureRX attack is the latest in a troubling and growing trend of ransomware attacks against health IT. If industry leaders aren’t already aware of this problem, the sheer size of this incident will likely get their attention. With these attacks becoming more frequent and expensive, the sector will likely shift in response.
When it comes to treatment-resistant mental health disorders like depression, ketamine therapy can work where other therapies have failed. While the drug carries a negative stigma because of its illegal use, it has been found to be extremely beneficial, and is even considered to be lifesaving by those who have used it. From understanding the drug to expanding its use and other ways it can help patients, here’s what you need to know.
How ketamine offers a solution
Ketamine is an anesthetic that’s been around for quite some time, but it has found a new purpose in the treatment of mental health disorders like depression, particularly for those whose symptoms are unchanged by other common treatments. One Nashville psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Barton, notes that ketamine “works much quicker than other medicines, and so it’s a real effective treatment when a patient’s been suffering for a very long time.” In comparison to other treatments, for instance, ketamine IV therapy is given in lower doses over longer people of time, making it well-tolerated by patients.
However, because of its history of being used recreationally, many may wonder what ketamine therapy feels like. Known as a dissociative anesthetic and often associated with a feeling of floating and relaxation, many describe the feeling of ketamine therapy as being in a dream-like state.
While intravenous ketamine therapy can be fast acting, sometimes improving symptoms of depression within hours of the first treatment, it’s important to take into account that ketamine therapy for depression simply isn’t for everyone. In addition to still being viewed as controversial by some and the potential the drug carries for abuse, it’s necessary to keep in mind that those who have used the drug experience varying levels of success, depending on personal factors — such as how long someone’s been depressed, or how severe their symptoms are.
Expanding the use of the drug
Due to its benefits, ketamine is surging in popularity. In fact, intravenous ketamine therapy may be safe and effective in adolescents with treatment resistant depression, according to one study in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Adolescents in the study actually reported significantly greater reductions in depressive symptoms after 24 hours, compared to those who received the medication midazolam. As well as expanding for the use of younger patients, ketamine therapy for depression is becoming more widespread around the world. Ketamine is now being used in authorized clinical settings in Singapore in order to treat those with major depressive disorder who aren’t otherwise responding to treatment. For example, esketamine, a modified version of the drug, has been approved and used to treat two patients via nasal spray.
By Ron Singh, senior vice president of coordination of benefits, HMS.
Ron Singh
As healthcare policies, regulations and payment models continue to shift in response to the ongoing pandemic, payment accuracy has grown increasingly complex and important as health plans, providers and state agencies alike strive to uncover revenue and additional savings wherever possible. Ensuring the accuracy of billing and payment for Medicaid members has risen to the top of the priority list for payers, yet significant barriers to success remain.
Coordination of Benefits (COB), also known as Third Party Liability (TPL), is a cornerstone of payment accuracy and a high-powered cost control system that keeps provider’s and health plan’s healthcare programs strong. State Medicaid agencies and health plans, both public and private, use COB programs to ensure the appropriate payers are always billed for patient care. Around 20% of Medicaid members have access to other healthcare coverage, and it is often difficult for health plans and providers to identify when this is the case, contributing to astonishing waste, including the $56 billion of improper Medicaid spending in 2019 alone.
Allowing providers to operate with a full understanding of available benefits and enhancing efficiencies across the care continuum helps with getting the appropriate prior authorizations. There may be services covered in the commercial health plan but not under Medicaid, giving patients more options. Individuals can be dually enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial health benefits, so when patients know the full scope of available coverage prior to care or billing, care teams operate more efficiently and increase patient satisfaction by maximizing use of all coverage sources.
COB programs have significantly helped to improve accurate payment and billing. However, amid the current health crisis and with Medicaid enrollment on the rise, organizations must strengthen payment accuracy efforts with real-time insight into eligibility and member coverage through the use of data-driven COB technologies. By utilizing these strategic solutions, healthcare organizations can improve care coordination and billing, reduce unnecessary costs and ensure providers are reimbursed correctly the first time.
Best Practices for Enhanced COB Programs and Efforts
With the adoption of COB and payment accuracy solutions, Medicaid agencies and health plans can quickly identify all relevant coverage at the point of enrollment or prior authorization, helping to preserve the integrity of Medicaid as a payer of last resort and significantly reducing costs and administrative burdens for both payers and providers.
The rapid collection of member data in various formats from multiple sources, for example, is a major component of COB success. The data needs to be constantly refreshed and should cover all claim types so that it meets members’ needs based on their fast and frequently changing healthcare coverage. To ensure the best possible match, organizations also need detailed data from all major health plans, as well as state and regional plans made accessible via payment accuracy technology.
Minority communities are incredibly diverse, particularly when looking at population mix and rural vs. urban areas. From different household makeups and risk factors to varying engagement preferences, that diversity also impacts health outcomes—a reality laid bare by COVID-19.
An analysis by Carrot Health found that rural communities bear the highest burden of COVID-19, while Black and Hispanic populations are the most adversely impacted by the virus.
This infographic takes a closer look at diverse communities with large Black and Hispanic populations, information that can be leveraged to improve health outcomes, member engagement, costs and public health.
By Andrei Klubnikin, content management team lead, ITRex.
Although the amount of US healthcare organizations that utilize patient portal software increased from 32% in 2014 to 90% in early 2019, less than a quarter of patients are willing to use the tools to schedule an appointment with a physician, view medical data and get tips for chronic disease self-management.
Patients’ ambivalence towards the technology can be largely attributed to healthcare data interoperability issues and administrative barriers to obtaining access to medical records. Furthermore, most patients still live under the paradigm of encounter-based medicine and perceive medical portals as useful only around the time of a physician office visit.
In an attempt to boost patient portal engagement and usage, medical professionals add multiple functions to healthcare software solutions. In this article, we will review patient portal features essential to engage the target audience and provide approximate patient portal development cost estimates.
Must-have Patient Portal Features as Reported by Healthcare Providers
In a nutshell, a patient portal is the user-facing component of an electronic health record (EHR) solution, which is intended to simplify patients’ access to medical data — i.e., physician notes, laboratory results, billing information, — and drive patient participation.
According to CHiME 2018 Healthcare’s Most Wired survey, the majority of healthcare facilities — with the exception of rural and critical access hospitals — have already incorporated robust communication, mobile and convenience capabilities into patient portal software. The reported enhancements include live chat enabling patients to directly contact care team and billing staff, automatic prescription refills, appointment scheduling and personal health data management. Additionally, 90% of respondents offer some form of telehealth services and take the device-agnostic approach to portal design to improve user experience on mobile devices.
Cybersecurity has been a major concern facing many digitalized businesses. Hackers have developed more sophisticated ways to breach security systems and steal essential data from businesses. Such security issues may cause significant financial loss and bring a business down to its knees. 
