Under the new tenets of value-based medicine, providers are incentivized based on patient outcomes and experiences, rather than mere completed appointments. To comply with these new goals, providers are looking to emerging technologies to help power better and smarter ways of delivering patient care.
More than just a buzzy phrase-of-the-moment, value-based patient messaging is a type of patient engagement that drives the goals of value-based medicine and aligns with its quadruple aim: improved outcomes, an enhanced patient experience, increased provider satisfaction and reduced per-capita costs.
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There is clear evidence that the value-based care model is poised for significant adoption. A 2015 report from Deloitte found the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) committed $10 billion per year for the next 10 years for efforts in innovation, including many that center on different forms of value-based care. Further, the Department of Health & Human Services set a goal of tying 50 percent of payments for traditional Medicare benefits to value-based payment models by the end of 2018.
Additionally, UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurance company in the U.S., pays nearly 60 percent of its reimbursements — some $64 billion — via value-based care models.
Value-based care places an emphasis on quality over quantity; providers are reimbursed based on healthy outcomes among their patient population as opposed to the amount of care they deliver.
One requirement of value-based care is to improve communications between providers and patients.
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Value-based patient messaging must encourage patients to live healthier lifestyles by actively looking after their own well being. To do this, providers send timely and tailored messages to patients to drive a certain behavior or action. Bot-enabled messaging allows physicians to send automated text messages that patients can use as a guide throughout their entire healthcare journey. These messages can be customized based on medical specialty or the type of procedure to address the personal needs of each individual patient, leading to improved health outcomes.
Traditionally, most of the messaging patients receive in the form of pre-appointment reminders. Too often, however, these basic messages are delivered with very little context — typically alerting you the time of your appointment to drive the single outcome of reducing no-shows.
The next wave of messaging is being driven by a much richer context, including diagnoses, procedures a patient has undergone, previous appointments, laboratory values and more. This richer context can help drive the goals of the quadruple aim.
Here are some examples:
- A patient is newly diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. This new diagnosis triggers a sequence of messaging following the appointment that contains educational content about diabetes, common complications, medication information, and an opportunity to connect to other resources, such as a dietician.
- In another example, a long-standing diabetic patient has been lost to care. A smart system can identify this subset of patients and begin to message them with educational material on the importance of having their annual foot and eye exams and facilitate the process of making an appointment to get the patient back in the door.
- Finally, a patient is newly diagnosed with cancer and begins chemotherapy. A significant percentage of side effects of chemotherapy go unnoticed by the provider, leading to unnecessary complications. The patient begins to automatically receive messages to help them track their symptoms, which allows their provider to remotely monitor the patient’s progress and helps them dial in the dosing of the chemotherapy to balance efficacy and side effects.
In these examples, the patient is delivered messaging that drives action and encourages engagement in their own healthcare. It’s about delivering a message in a timely fashion to spur an action or behavioral change to drive a positive outcome
As value-based care becomes more widespread, there is added incentive for providers to embrace value-based patient messaging. Under this still-growing model, providers are compensated based on the health of their patients. That means they have every reason to do all they can to ensure their patients are healthy — not just during visits, but along every step of their healthcare journey.
When a system like this is fully implemented in healthcare, it will help improve outcomes by engaging patients and keeping them on track. It also reduces costs by automating these messages rather than relying on dedicated staff, drives patient satisfaction, and ultimately makes providers better healthcare professionals.
Photo: Halfpoint, Getty Images
