The Executive Innovation Show

Welcome to this week's healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of "The Executive Innovation Show" podcast, we're bringing you hot topics, game-changing ideas, the best telehealth practices and tips all while answering questions that we receive each week. During today's topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about HIPAA & telehealth waivers during the pandemic and what to plan for next.

With HIPAA waivers and telehealth waivers on the brink of expiration healthcare organizations are scrambling right now. We're going to break down what we know, what we think is going to happen, and what you need to do about it. 

HIPAA compliance was temporarily lifted during the middle of COVID for healthcare organizations. Doctors and clinicians were implementing Skype, Zoom, Google Duo, and more for their patient appointments. While these platforms provided a temporary aid for those who couldn't get true telehealth solutions, these platforms have proven not be a permanent solution to the problems we face during COVID. 

A lot of practice groups and organizations took these temporary solutions and ran with them, but what should you be thinking about for a long term solution? If you're currently using Skype, FaceTime, Google Duo, or only audio calls without a BAA, you may be running into some reimbursement issues. 

It's time to start looking for long term solutions as we transition into this new normal for patients and clinicians. Patients are now used to doing telehealth. They're willing and demanding it. People are still afraid to go to medical appointments and follow up appointments, as a result the volume continues to be down. Clinicians are loving telehealth, working from home, and it's helping work-life balance. This new normal is here to stay. What percentage of physical appointments versus virtual? We don't know but we do know volume has increased. 

With telehealth consults here to stay, it's important to be HIPAA compliant. Otherwise, you could end with violations that can cost up to $50,000 per occurrence. These can add up fast and open up a chain reaction for clinical professionals to look across the organization for other violations. This is why it's important to find a HIPAA compliant telehealth solutions and begin the transition now. 

It's imperative to look at a transition game plan if you are using a non-compliant tool. This is not only for the safety of your practice but also for the safety of your patients. Check out these links here for more information: 

Stay tuned to the podcast as we help each other navigate through this new normal. Be on the lookout for additional podcasts on telehealth workflows and what to expect in this virtual world as more states lock back down. 

Want more telehealth workflow examples and information? Watch our on-demand webinar, "Best Practices: Virtual Telehealth Patient Handoff Workflows". This webinar goes beyond 1:1 video calls to show you best practices in video telehealth workflows from check-in through check-out, for a 100% virtual care workflow process. 

Listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today.  

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, including answering questions that we receive each week, game-changing ideas, best telehealth practices, and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about what telehealth means to her.

What Telehealth Means to Me
To get started, I'm going to talk about what I see when I look at telehealth and why it’s truly meaningful to me.. Also, I’m going to give some specific use cases as to how telehealth has helped me, and how it can help others, as well as why I started a telehealth company in the first place. To me, telehealth means convenience. It means better patient outcomes. And most importantly, it means an overall better caregiver experience. 

Telehealth Simplifies the Experience for Caregivers and Chronic Care Patients
Having gone through the hospice and skilled nursing facilities experience as the primary caregiver for my grandmother, telehealth is what enabled me to go to work most of the days. Rather than having to go physically to a nursing home or a long-term care facility when a clinician would call and report complications that were going on with my grandmother, telehealth was the answer. 

When you look at Gen X caregivers that are making these hospital and provider decisions, we are looking at telehealth as a time saver for us. This provides a way to get better patient outcomes with more outreach when we're able to make healthcare decisions. 

Telehealth Reduces No Shows and Improves the Patient Care Experience
The second use case I want to talk about is in regard to mental health. When we look at youth and senior mental health, which are kind of the bookends of mental health, there still is a huge opportunity to use telehealth to reach these segments. For instance, if I look at my own son who sees a therapist via telehealth, and still did pre-COVID, it serves as that checkpoint for him every week. Whether he's in his room videoing with the therapist or talking to a physical appointment, telehealth makes it easy.. And as a result, that no show rate reduces. So if our week is really crazy, or we're traveling, my son is still able to, regardless of where we are, shut the door, get on video, and have that mental health appointment.

And the same goes for seniors as it does with the youth population. As we're looking at these senior facilities, we see a sense of isolation. So telehealth may be the only outside interaction that they have for that week, whether it's using video to talk to a therapist, to talk to family members or caregivers, and get that face-to-face emotional connection. So, in essence, that's what telehealth means to me. 

Filled with insightful information, “The Driving Forces of Telehealth Adoption During COVID” infographic is now ready for download. Listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today.

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, including answering questions that we receive each week, game-changing ideas, best telehealth practices, and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about the advantages and disadvantages to telehealth in rural areas.

Benefits of Telehealth in Rural Areas

COVID has shed much light on providing telehealth to demographics that generally weren't being served via telehealth before. This includes the Medicaid and Medicare populations and the rural demographics, who didn't have access to specialty medicine or emergency medicine without traveling long distances, 30 or 40 miles for an appointment. Telehealth has decreased driving time for patients significantly living in rural areas. This has enabled more convenience for those patients' routine visits while providing better care access.

Barriers to Telehealth in Rural Areas

Regarding the complication side of telehealth in rural areas, there have been a lot of talks about bandwidth being an issue in these demographics. And indeed, that is a current issue and a concern on the telehealth side. Even though in rural demographics, the home internet is not as big of a wifi problem. 

• Less high speed internet when looking at carrier networks and cell phone towers within rural residences. 
• Both the clinician and patient need to have 1.5 to 2.0 megabytes to uphold both sides of the video call’s quality.
• When it comes to camera quality, it is measured through high-definition or HD. HD starts at 720 pixels(p), and even then, that's still "semi-HD." 
• Typically an excellent frame rate is 30. That's what a person will usually get on their television or DVR. 

We're paving a significant way to expand access with telehealth programs in rural communities. There have been so many successes, so much open up billable codes, really keeping patients safe, providing better access, and helping out caregivers taking their senior parents and having to take off work and drive them to all these appointments. 

The successes outweigh the complications. As a rural demographic provider, they must have patience because they will have patients who will drop off because of bandwidth, so providers might have to reconnect from time to time. But again, if this saves patients one to two hours from a five-minute, in-person face visit with their provider, it is worth implementing telehealth. So if you are a provider in that area, hang in there. The successes outweigh the complications, but it will take just a little bit more time. 

Filled with insightful information, “The Driving Forces of Telehealth Adoption During COVID” infographic is now ready for download. Visit our resource center to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today. 

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, including answering questions that we receive each week, game-changing ideas, best telehealth practices, and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about pediatric telehealth solutions.

Pediatric Telehealth vs. Telemedicine for Children

There are notable differences between telemedicine and telehealth for children - and they're not the same. In the telehealth industry, pediatrics has been a significant focus on parents and the convenience that pediatrics telehealth solutions provide for them and their children. Whether it's 10 p.m., or during the day loading up the kids, getting them into the pediatrics physician's office, for routine, low acuity visits can be hectic and stressful. Being able to still see their primary health care physician is critical. 

The good news is that a lot of this can be addressed and is being addressed today with telehealth. Typically, if a parent has a child who gets sick, they can opt to visit the pediatrician's office, if they can get a same-day appointment. Likewise, parents can take their child to an Urgent Care, emergency department, minute clinic, or something of that nature. 

On the same note, it's important to differentiate "pediatric telehealth" from "telemedicine for children," which is currently used in practice as well. Typically, telemedicine indicates that the provider, or the physician, is communicating over the telephone with the parents, asking questions to try to diagnose a child's medical issue. 

So if a pediatric practice is looking to take their business to the next level and increase their billable revenue, consider using One Touch Telehealth services since this field of medicine has one of the highest after-hour and weekend-calls rates. 

If an appointment doesn't require a physical exam or actual labs for infants and children, a pediatric practice can move these appointment types to telehealth to free up waiting room space to keep patients and their guardians safer. 

From a pediatrics perspective, of course, holding a telehealth appointment with a child will be more than having one with an adult. Accordingly, a pediatrician may initially talk to the parents, but then ultimately, he or she will speak to the child on the video visit. Now, because pediatricians using telehealth programs won't necessarily be able to look into the ears or down the throat and nose, they're going to have to ask more questions than usual about how the child feels. 

Consequently, if a provider is looking to implement a pediatric telehealth solution, they'll want to keep some of these things in mind for the practice's workflow regarding the appointment types that should move to telehealth. It's essential to look at how a pediatrics practice arranges after-hour and weekend appointments to see what CPT codes are eligible concerning increasing billable revenue.

Filled with insightful information, “The Driving Forces of Telehealth Adoption During COVID” infographic is now ready for download. Listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today. 

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, questions we receive each week, game-changing ideas, best practices, and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about how telehealth is used in healthcare and critical components of developing new patient workflows. 

We have seen a ton of lessons learned during COVID. A lot of practices, urgent care clinics, behavioral health, really anything across the board, had to overnight learn new patient workflows. In today’s Knowledge Knugget, we’re going to be covering “10 Things to Consider When Using Telehealth: Patient and Provider Workflows”. 

1. Front Staff 
2. Patient Experience 
3. Patient Preference
4. Insurance Copays
5. After Hours 
6. Follow Up Appointments 
7. New Patient Consults
8. Provider Scheduling 
9. Provider Windshield Time
10. Training and Technology 

If you ruled out telehealth during COVID and you miss some of these steps, now's a great time to go back and fine-tune. 

Some of these steps that you might've missed because you were moving a hundred miles an hour, in crisis. As we move to the new normal, which is the hybrid model of seeing patients in person and telehealth, now's a great time to go back and start looking at these steps. Find which ones you missed, which ones you didn't have time for, and which ones you need to prioritize now. 

Filled with insightful information, “The Driving Forces of Telehealth Adoption During COVID” infographic is now ready for download. Listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today. 

https://onetouchtelehealth.com/post/telehealth-in-nephrology

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, questions we receive each week, game-changing ideas, best practices, and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about telehealth in nephrology. 

Telehealth has seen a huge rise in nephrologists and renal care adoption. COVID has forced telehealth and it will be here to stay post-COVID. We are going to go over 7 main areas in which we’ve seen telehealth being used successfully in renal care. 

1. Keeping Vulnerable Patients Safe 

When you have a very vulnerable population that still has to go to dialysis three times a week, how do you keep the physicians and patients safe?

2. Dietitians for New Renal Patients 

How do you communicate a very important factor for renal patients? Their diet. Telehealth gives dietitians the ability to mobilize and virtualize: 

• Home Dialysis Patients 
• Patients in Facilities 
• Conversations with Caregivers 
• Appointments about a renal diet
• and more.

Dietitians that service multiple dialysis centers now can stay in one location or work from home and still see their patients without traveling. 

3. Pre-End Stage Renal Disease Education  
As we look at the rising number of patients that are going to have kidney disease, having those initial consults with the nephrologists to see how to lower and change patients’ number is important. 

4. Medication 
Medication refills and office checkups can all be done through telehealth to keep both patients and the nephrologists safe as well. 

5. Nursing Homes and Skilled Facilities 
For nephrologists who do have patients in nursing homes and skilled facilities that are limiting the flow of people, telehealth can play a very important role. Doctors still need to be able to see those patients. 

6. Home Dialysis Patients 
More and more patients are moving to home dialysis. These patients aren’t in the dialysis center but still need to see their nephrologists. To keep these vulnerable patients at home and provide proactive care, telehealth leads the way.  

7. Equipment Education and Assistance 
While these renal care patients are doing home dialysis they still may have issues with equipment, such as their Baxter machine. They may even need more supplies or tech support. This is supercritical and can be done through video chat/telehealth. Provide immediate care and support without having to enter the home. 

As we look at telehealth in nephrology, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In nephrology, we’ll be seeing a hybrid model to provide more proactive care to renal patients. Providers will be able to use telehealth to see patients at home, in facilities, and more. Nephrologists were pushed into telehealth overnight but are now really seeing the benefits. 

Patients are commenting on how convenient telehealth is. When you have patients that have to do dialysis three times a week and see a doctor, convenience is critical. With COVID adoption and the bill that the presidential admission passed about home dialysis in 2025, this is a much-needed push for the industry. 

Filled with insightful information, “The Driving Forces of Telehealth Adoption During COVID”, the infographic is now ready for download. Listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today. 

https://mkting.onetouchtelehealth.com/telehealth-coronavirus-infograph

Read the blog here.

Welcome to the Executive Innovation Show Podcast, brought to you by One Touch Telehealth. During this podcast, host Carrie Chitsey talks with Tim Spooner. 

Tim Spooner is a CEO and Physical Therapist, a self-insured owner of Spooner Physical Therapy with 22 locations, and founder of Spooner MSD Solutions. Tim is on the front lines fighting for employers to receive the best care, at the best price for their employees. As both a buyer and provider of healthcare, Tim is in a unique position to understand the obstacles many employers face when it comes to medical overspend.

Listen to this episode of The Executive Innovation Show Podcast as we discuss: 

• Overnight, healthcare executives had to detect and comprehend how to keep patients safe during this Coronavirus pandemic. From virtual payments to virtual care, the healthcare industry had to adapt. Tim Spooner describes their strategic moves across locations to keep patients out of the waiting room and ER. 
• There are a lot of lessons learned from COVID and new gameplans to be strategized. In a post-COVID world, do we bring everything back within the four walls or do we continue with virtual care? Is telehealth for physical therapy here to stay? What does Tim Spooner think? Listen to his answer here. 
• Are seniors able to adapt to telehealth? Carrie Chitsey and Tim Spooner provide examples of the positive outcomes they’ve seen within the senior community and virtual health. 
• What is a musculoskeletal disorder and did you know that it affects four out of five people that are walking around every day? Tim Spooner details how they are working to care for patients before they need surgery. 
• While MSD patients are normally perceived as seniors or blue-collar workers, this is not always the case. What shifts are being seen between the younger and older generations regarding treatment?
• 85% to 90% of musculoskeletal disorders can be treated with conservative care, but why aren’t they? At times, patients can delay treatment until it becomes worse - leading to the prescription of opioids and possibly addiction. Can we stop some of the trickle effects of opioid addiction with proactive physical therapy?
• As always we ask, what is keeping Tim Spooner up at night? Find out by listening to the podcast. 

Learn more about how Tim Spooner and Spooner Physical Therapy help people achieve health through movement here.

Have you watched our recent webinar? One Touch Telehealth’s on-demand telehealth webinar, “COVID Telehealth Adoption: Why Simple Patient & Physician Experience is Critical” is now available here. 

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to this week’s healthcare Knowledge Knugget! As a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, questions we receive each week and game-changing ideas, best practices and tips. During today’s topic, Carrie Chitsey talks about how telemedicine improves the quality of care for patients. 

Improve Access to Care for Chronic Care Patients 

As we look at a post COVID world, how has telehealth improved the quality of care for patients? With forced telehealth adoption of both patients and physicians, this has really shed a light on access to care for those who live in rural demographics, FQHCs, and population health who may have not had access to care previously. With COVID, and the effort to keep patients safe, this prompted Medicare and Medicaid to unlock codes and make care more accessible while keeping patients at home and safe. 

Improving Patient Quality of Care with Telehealth 

Now, you see specialty providers who have moved to 80 to 90% telemedicine. Telehealth has allowed physicians to continue care for existing patients and the most vulnerable. How do we keep patients out of the hospital and reduce hospital admissions during COVID? When you look at the quality of care for high risk patients that have chronic care, whether that’s cardiology, nephrology, pulmonology or even oncology, telehealth helps keep them at home. 

This has also led to more touch points with patients, whether in a dialysis center or cancer center. Physicians and providers who would normally only see these patients once a month or once a quarter are being more proactive. Proactive care for the patients population that have chronic conditions are now hearing more from their doctors during COVID. 

Save Patients and Providers Time 

With the average telemedicine program appointment being only 4 to 7 minutes, more touch points are now available. The average patient spends two hours and 15 minutes going to an in-person appointment, but only spends five minutes with the provider. With telemedicine, you are able to free up providers time. Instead of going room to room they are able to still provide patient care in real time.  

Building Proactive Relationships with Providers

Lastly, when you look at populations who use the ER as their primary care such as population or Medicaid patients, telehealth allows them to establish a relationship with a primary care provider. So now, they can use telehealth and see their primary care provider with a more proactive approach instead of reactive. This not only improves quality of care but also reduces healthcare costs. 

You can see the benefits of telehealth services on many fronts from not only chronic care patients but also behavioral health, primary care and much more. Telemedicine paves the way for the improvement in quality of care across the industry.  

Watch the on-demand webinar "COVID Telehealth Adoption: Why Simple Patient & Physician Experience is Critical" and listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth. Subscribe to the podcast and rate us! Have a Knowledge Knugget idea? Reach out and submit today. 

Read the blog here. 

Welcome to today's Knowledge Knugget, as a part of “The Executive Innovation Show” podcast, we’re bringing you the hot topics, questions we receive each week, and game-changing ideas, best practices, and tips. During this week's segment, Justin Knott, President of Intrepy Marketing answers the question - how to market your telemedicine solution. 

So you've picked a telemedicine software, which almost every practice has at this point. If you haven't, you need to get on that very quickly, so you can open your digital doors and start seeing patients again.

As a healthcare marketing agency these tips have been really effective, helping practices adapt to the technology, increase patient retention, start seeing more patients, and scale their telemedicine visits. 

Tip #1 - Place an Announcement on Your Website

It's super easy, but surprisingly people are just still not doing it is you got to get the information up on your practice website. Easy enough again, get it up on your website. So once you've chosen a telemedicine provider, you want to make sure that you have COVID related information that you can deliver to your patients on your website. 

Tip #2 - Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. 

Assume your patients know nothing. They don't know that you're open. They don't know how to do telemedicine because oftentimes that is true. So leverage your social media platforms to put out a series of posts about how you're handling COVID, the fact that you are offering telemedicine, and how they can book appointments.

Tip # 3 - Online Appointment Booking 

Some EMRs out there offer it and you can iFrame it on your website. There's also a lot of HIPAA compliant online appointment booking, softwares that you can integrate. It's just going to make things a whole lot easier when people get on your website to go ahead and book an appointment and receive the information about telemedicine and see you. 

Tip #4 - Text Messaging to Reduce No Show Rates

Next up, Justin Knott recommends that you have text messaging capabilities for a couple of different reasons. And again, your EMR may provide it. If not, I would recommend finding a solution for it.

Tip #5 - Simplicity is Key! 

When looking for a telemedicine provider, make sure you have one that limits the amount of steps required to get them on there. The more likely it is for human error to be involved, which you really want to avoid. Otherwise you're spending more time tech in troubleshooting than you are actually on the point of care for your patients, which is what this is all about. 

Pro Tips

Justin recommends making sure that you have some type of backup telemedicine option and FaceTime or Skype for business. Something like that can be a really easy backup in the event of latency or downtime because telemedicine platforms are being stretched a little bit more than they ever have to say the least. 

That's today's healthcare Knowledge Knugget, part of The Executive Innovation Show. Feel free to submit questions or be featured on the Knowledge Knugget. Subscribe to our YouTube, Vimeo, and the podcast channels to get your Knowledge Knugget on Thursdays.

Watch the on demand webinar "COVID Telehealth Adoption: Why Simple Patient & Physician Experience is Critical" and listen to the healthcare podcasts where we talk about all the use cases for telehealth.

Read the blog here.

Welcome to the Executive Innovation Show Podcast, brought to you by One Touch Telehealth. During this podcast hear host Carrie Chitsey, with Becky Brown and Rebecca Werner. For #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth, listen to Mental Health COVID: Behind the Front Lines – Seniors & First Responders. 

Becky Brown, LCSW, SUDC has been working with Valley Behavioral Health since 1997 in various capacities, including both clinical and operational. She is now the Chief Operating Officer and has used her expertise to support the operations team and the continued growth of the company as the healthcare landscape continues to rapidly change. 

Rebecca Werner is the Chief of Operations for Whitemarsh Community Ambulance Association (WCAA), the primary 911 Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance serving Whitemarsh Township in Montgomery County Pennsylvania. 

Listen to this episode of The Executive Innovation Show Podcast as we discuss: 

• The mental health crisis has risen with the recent COVID pandemic. We talk with Becky Brown, the COO of Valley Behavioral Health, about what the past two months have looked like. Has she seen any changes in mental health? And what demographics are being largely affected? Becky states that their behavioral health organization has had to pivot heavily to telehealth services. 
• Listen as Becky Brown states the steps Valley Behavioral Health is taking to look after it’s senior population. How can you extend the reach of behavioral health during isolation? 
• With the new requirement of a telepsych evaluation as a senior patient comes into a facility, what is Becky Brown’s prediction on the future of mental health post-COVID for seniors? 
• Post-COVID, will we see a hybrid model/blended model of in-person visits and telehealth appointments? Will we see a surge in creativity on how to care for patients? 
• Listen as Rebecca Werner, Chief of Operations for Whitemarsh Community Ambulance Association, talks about being on the front lines of COVID as a first responder and how life has changed for them.  
• While on the front lines, first responders still have a family at home. How do they deal with the thought of potentially bringing COVID home with them and manage that anxiety?      
• “Life as we know it has changed.” Rebecca Werner describes the daily changes that have happened since COVID.
• Mental health for first responders is huge. How do you keep employees' mental health a priority post-COVID? Carrie and Rebecca discuss the advantages of peer-to-peer support and the benefits it will have for EMTs post-COVID. 
• Rebecca Werner details the importance of talking about mental health issues. How do we rid the stigma?      
• As always, we ask Becky and Rebecca, what’s keeping them up at night. Hear their answers on the podcast. 

Stay up to date with Becky Brown and Valley Cares by checking out their e-therapy solutions.

Keep up with Rebecca Werner, the Chief of Operations for Whitemarsh Community Ambulance Association (WCAA).

Learn more about One Touch Telehealth and how telehealth can be beneficial for mental health during COVID-19. Download the “Telemental Health and Its Impact on the Future of Behavioral Health" White Paper.