From longer hospital stays and readmissions to rising inflation, keeping healthcare costs within the margins is a constant challenge for any healthcare facility. The traditional approach would be to shift that cost to consumers or look into resizing the organization.
In today’s modern healthcare industry, healthcare providers must instead look at sustainable strategies to reduce healthcare costs while respecting the Quadruple Aim:
- Patient health
- Patient experience
- Costs
- Healthcare team wellbeing
To that end, implementing telehealth and remote patient management (RPM) can be an effective strategy to help healthcare providers reduce healthcare costs.
Here are five ways how:
1. Reduce ReadmissionsFrom patients to providers, hospital readmissions can be costly to every aspect of the healthcare system. As such, reducing readmissions is key to not only lowering costs but is also essential to improving patient outcomes and quality of care.
With telehealth and RPM, healthcare providers can reduce hospital readmissions in the following ways:
- Identify and monitor patients at risk of readmissions and provide them with comprehensive monitoring and virtual-care solutions.
- Encourage better patient education about their conditions and improve patients’ comprehension of post-discharge instructions.
Moreover, improving patient outcomes can boost Medicare reimbursement rates and hospital ratings, further strengthening your facility’s reputation.
2. Optimize Staff
For the best patient outcomes and quality of care, your staff will need to perform at their best. However, nursing shortages and staff burnout can significantly impact the patient experience, resulting in longer hospital stays and readmissions, which can be costly.
You can significantly reduce the burden on your nurses and staff by utilizing launching care delivery models that leverage remote solutions, like Hospital at Home. With easier patient monitoring, fewer in-person visits, and lower admissions to the emergency department (ED), telehealth and RPM can improve patient outcomes and help reduce the total cost of care for both patients and providers.
3. Focus on the Continuum of Care
For recently discharged patients or patients with chronic conditions, telehealth and RPM can assist in providing continuous care by optimizing a healthcare professional’s time with their patients and improving communications.
Telehealth and RPM can reduce the need for unnecessary hospital visits, give patients more agency over their health, and greatly reduce the likelihood of further hospitalization or readmissions due to worsening or unnoticed symptoms. Some of the features that help achieve this are:
- Remote biometric monitoring
- Virtual visits
- Symptom surveys
- Medication reminders
- Patient education
4. Leverage Reimbursements
RPM can prove to be a consistent source of revenue for your healthcare facility provided you use the right CMS-approved codes. While this can be a boon for provider organizations, keeping track of your telehealth and RPM reimbursements accurately and correctly can be a challenge, especially when you’re just starting out.
Consider seeking the help of telehealth and RPM reimbursement specialists to assist in the process, so you’ll be able to keep up with the reimbursement process in addition to providing higher-quality care for your patients.
To estimate the potential reimbursement revenue of telehealth and RPM implementation, have a look at HRS’ Reimbursement Calculator. For more resources on telehealth and RPM reimbursements, visit the HRS Blog for reimbursement guides and other information.
5. Provide Value-Based Care
Value-based care is a proactive concept that aims to keep healthcare costs down (for both the payers and providers) by focusing on quality and patient outcomes.
While several barriers still stand in the way of fully implementing value-based care, RPM can address most of these barriers—meaning it can improve your facility’s ability to provide value-based care and lower your operating costs in the long run.
With the value-based care model on the rise, the adoption of telehealth and RPM can help to further establish the model as an essential part of your facility or as a stepping point to begin your journey to value-based care.
Learn more about RPM and Value-Based Care.
Reduce Your Healthcare Costs with HRS Telehealth and RPM Solutions
Join many other healthcare providers who deploy HRS solutions to improve patient health, better patient satisfaction, and lower healthcare costs. Learn more about how our telehealth solutions can assist your organization in reducing costs and improving healthcare quality today!
