Starting in 2020, seniors with Medicare Advantage plans from private insurance companies will have expanded access to telehealth services as a basic benefit. Under a rule that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized Friday, seniors will be able to use telehealth in their homes instead of having to go to a health-care facility, Shelby Livingston reports for Modern Healthcare.
That will help rural seniors who have a hard time arranging transportation for health care services, so long as they have sufficient internet service.
“Previously, Medicare Advantage plans could include additional telehealth services only as a supplemental benefit to be paid for with rebate dollars or enrollee premiums,” Livingston reports. “The change was called for by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The CMS also said it is streamlining grievance and appeals process for patients enrolled in certain dual-eligible special needs plans and affiliated Medicaid managed care plans, as required by the Bipartisan Budget Act.”
The future is apparently here! This reminds me of the tele-packs that we use in the hospital to monitor patients. I don’t know why this wasn’t thought of earlier. We monitor patients in the hospital for their vital signs, EKG’s and such, why couldn’t we have done this years ago. When thinking of taking care of the elderly in rural environments, one must ponder, how would we save this patient if they were no were near the hospital, are they monitoring their blood sugars, blood pressure, heart rate or vital signs in general? It is especially amazing that video conferencing can be done when it may come to educational materials and discussion and/or the ability to share information with patients such as x-ray images and such.
ReplyDelete“In one study across 15 states that included 100,000 patients, researchers found that patients in the teleICU group had a 16% and 26% lower risk of hospital and ICU mortality, respectively.” (Lilly, 2014).
The only thing that may be a complication of this technology is that some older adults may not have Wi-Fi or smartphones, hopefully, some family member of especially those patients that live in rural areas would be able to get access and get older patients on board with this technology.
This is the bottom line though of what patient advocacy is all about? The use of technology to have saved lives. Even some basic use of this technology can help patients with not only educational material but video conferencing with patients family and perhaps even with those that may be medical power of attorneys to help plan, education and help care and prepare a patient for a procedure or even provide preventative measures through monitoring and changes in lifestyles, brilliant!
Anthony Mielcarek, PTA, LPN, LMT
Nursing Student at Herzing University
amielcarek@herzing.edu
Racine, WI, USA