Ultimately, financial survival and the quality of patient care depend upon understanding and adapting to these changes. So what are the most critical issues now surrounding reimbursement and revenues in emergency pre-hospital care?
Key 1 : Avoiding Transports Deemed Non-Reimbursable
Unnecessary transports are increasingly being denied for reimbursement by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies. The new pathway for EMS providers is safe “Treat and Release.” Transports are later determined to be unnecessary yet the EMS provider and gaining ER Physician still carry tremendous amounts of liability by remotely deciding that transport is not required.
The Data : The solution is having all the necessary data available to both the EMS provider and gaining Physician. Additionally, this information should be recorded and stored for liability reasons. Avoiding the cost and time of an unnecessary transport allows the EMS crew to be available for additional service calls which actually require transport and are reimbursable.
Key 2 : Expediting First-Time Reimbursement
Increasing 1st time reimbursement rate by accomplished by making billing summaries more accurate and medically differentiated while decreasing the time spent generating these reports. Seamlessly integrating the physiological data, medications and treatments given into the billing summary without requiring manual information transfer on the part of the EMS crew increases the medical differentiation of the billing summary.
Medical Differentiation : Increasing the medical differentiation directly increases the likelihood that the billing summary is accepted rather than rejected by robots used to scan for potential fraud and abuse.
Key 3 : Increase Reimbursable Services
Providers must increase revenue streams through new contracts with ACOs by providing mobile integrated care for newly released patients (30 days of ACO release) and underserved patient communities. No EMS service should be left behind. 6
Critical Integrated Communications Mobile solutions must have a more powerful integrated communications platform (3G, 4G, LTE, cellular, data radio, etc. ) on-board for real-time telemedicine consultation during the visits. This allows a more equitable balance of risk and reward for the EMS provider. Sending EMS professionals to newly released patients without the real time support of the responsible ACO could mis-align the risk and incentives for a new relationship.
Conventional consumer products (cellphones, tablets, etc. ) most often have inherent weaknesses, so qualified components specifically designed for these specialized applications must be used to succeed. We have all experienced, "Can you hear me now?"; the difficulties associated with maintaining communications on consumer based mobile devices.
Key 4 : Increased Efficiency = Reduced Workload
With integrated communications management, everyone's workload drops. Thorough information is automatically conveyed, so substantially less typing and talking, or verbal communications, are required on each call.
Automated Data Transfer This can accelerate units going back into service. Since responses are matched to the level of care required, vehicle and equipment use is more efficient. Critical assets are freed to respond to real emergencies.
LifeBot 5: Deploy Fast, Deploy in Scale
Fulfilling the needs of one medical speciality is inadequate. System design should be multi-disciplinary addressing the needs and data requirements respectively.
The EMS community is where all medical disciplines come together. The era of single purpose medical devices is a thing of the past. For Mobile Integrated Healthcare to be successful, the systems deployed must be useful by the broadest number of medical disciplines. Modular design expands this capability while keeping costs under control. The modular design of the LifeBot 5 allows the unit to be modified to fit the specific needs of the organization rather than the organization changing to meet the design of the technology which is the key to going to scale.
Small, lighweight, self-contained, multidisciplionary, and cost effective the LifeBot 5 is not only designed for rapid scaled deployment, but also to substantially reduce the costs associated with use of mobile telemedicine systems.
The Most Important Key : Implement an Integrated System
rather than a Technology "Dead End"
According to LifeBot CEO Roger Heath, "The choice is simple, use cobbled together gadgets or use a fully integrated system. The LifeBot 5 is the only solution providing the automated flow of core data for medical differentiation to secure reimbursement. And, it is the only one with a future of critical patented technologies."
