The healthcare industry’s growing adoption of practices associated with the hospitality and retail industry seems to be percolating to the health IT industry too with a money back guarantee sales pitch from telehealth and remote monitoring company AMC Health.
In its sales pitch at HIMSS, AMC Health promises to return providers’ money for a program to reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions that was initiated in a collaboration with Geisinger Health Plan.
Providers are racing to comply with the federal government’s meaningful use requirements designed to improve patient outcomes and help reduce the $17.5 billion in healthcare costs associated with the readmission of Medicare patients.
AMC Health’s program entails telecare managers identifying gaps in care and screening for conditions that make patients vulnerable to readmission. A case manager contacts clients if any problems arise that requires a clinician’s involvement.
AMC Health said it would refund 100 percent of all costs incurred during the first 90 days of the program if the 30-day readmission rate doesn’t decline by at least 10 percent compared to a risk-matched reference population receiving the usual care, according to a company statement.
Kevin Quinn, a senior vice president with AMC Health, told MedCity News that the reason why the company is so confident is that the same program at Geisinger resulted in a 44 percent decrease in readmissions within 30-days of discharge among Medicare beneficiaries.
“We provide clinical solutions that are used to enhance clinical efficiency. Geisinger is a great example…It’s a little surprising that more CFOs have not drafted more aggressive strategies to attack [avoidable readmissions].”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
