What the ACA ruling means for Physical Therapists
by: Alexis Fotiu and Bronwyn Spira PT
The Supreme Court ruling on health care was announced today, upholding President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). The law requires individuals to have health insurance, either through their employers or a state-sponsored exchange. Beginning in 2014, people without health insurance will face a fine. The law also requires insurance companies to cover preventative care at no additional cost to consumers, bars insurers from setting a dollar limit on health coverage payouts, and bans them from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions. So what does this mean for doctors and clinics?
The number of individuals who will require health insurance will double. This means insurance companies are going to have to cover a lot more costs while doctors can expect to treat twice as many patients. The problem with this is that doctors need time and resources to provide quality care. If they are seeing two patients in the amount of time they used to treat one, people are concerned they will not be able to receive the quality care they need. Companies are going to have to cover health insurance for more people. In order for them to do this, reimbursements are going to be less per visit and doctors are going to be required to see more patients per day, so doctors need to act more efficiently. One great solution for this is for doctors to use technology that enables them to speed up administrative time, lower costs, and allows them to spend quality time with their patients.
Digital technology in health care is becoming increasingly popular as doctors see the benefits to using programs and devices that save them time. Doctors can use these programs on devices such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones to record and send information during the visit that they used to have to sit and input after patient visits (creating long hours of administrative work). Patients use these devices to download programs that monitor their health and receive information instantly. These programs will become crucial to healthcare professionals as their patient load increases.
The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) released a statement soon after the ruling stating, “While neutral on the ACA from the beginning, APTA has for years been an advocate for a health care system that includes rehabilitation as a core benefit, demonstrates the value of physical therapy to patients, embraces innovation in reforms that are patient centered, and provides a solution to a system that for too long has been in high costs and disparate in outcomes and quality”. From a practical standpoint, physical therapists will need to adopt technologies that improve efficiency and speed up workflow as they experience an influx of patients as a result of the ACA. These technologies allow for physical therapists to provide quality care while saving time spent on administrative work (time that could and should be spent treating more patients). Whether you support the ACA or not, one thing is certain: it will result in a need for more physical therapists to embrace innovations that will allow them to continue to provide quality care.
FORCE therapeutics designs web and mobile applications for injury rehabilitation and prevention.
FORCE TherEx and FORCE Premium are known to be the BEST EMR and HEP products in Physical Therapy and Rehab.
Please visit our website at www.forcetherapeutics.com
Mobile Solutions: Will mobile health applications lower healthcare costs?
by: Bronwyn Spira PT & Alexis Fotiu
The cost of healthcare in the United States is high—even for those who have insurance. According to a report by the Health and Human Services department, U.S. healthcare spending grew by 3.9% in 2010, reaching $2.6 trillion. That’s an average of $8,402 per person (1). In 2011, healthcare costs for a family of four rose again. American families who are insured through their jobs averaged healthcare costs of $19,393 while workers’ out-of-pocket costs rose to an average of $3,280 (2). It doesn’t matter if people have insurance or not, the costs from co-pays, deductibles, return visits, and other expenses are taking huge chunks out of peoples’ budgets causing Americans to demand reform.
Digital healthcare and mobile technology offer real and immediate cost savings. The challenge is adoption. People use mobile technology to manage their bank accounts, shop online, read the news, search for information and book their vacations, along with countless other tasks. The healthcare industry is just beginning to enjoy the high demand for mobile applications. Early last year, PEW Research showed that 17 percent of mobile phone users were already using their devices to look up health and medical information. Additionally, Juniper recently estimated that 44 million health related apps were downloaded in 2011 (3).
The mobile consumer is exploding. A study by research firm Gartner reported that over 296 million smartphones shipped in 2010, over 630 million are projected to ship in 2012, and 1.1 billion smartphones are expected to ship worldwide in 2015 (5). As for tablet users, the study by Frost and Sullivan projects there will be 82 million tablet users by 2015, up from 10 million in 2010 (4).
Mobile health applications allow patients to manage and engage in their own care. Patients can keep track of their health information, store personalized fitness and health regimes and communicate directly with their health professionals all through one mobile device. As everyone looks for ways to improve efficiency without compromising care, mobile health applications have become a leading solution.
Healthcare professionals are increasingly implementing healthcare applications in their practices. According to data compiled by research firm Frost and Sullivan, the mobile applications market in healthcare will grow by over 70% over the next 5 years (4). The benefits of mobile health applications extend to both the patient and the provider as they decrease out-of-pocket costs for both. These applications prevent costly events such as hospital readmissions, deductibles and co-pays. These apps save both consumers and businesses time and money. Businesses will experience increased productivity due to fewer return office visits and the convenience of communicating with patients via secure mobile applications will allow them to spend their time on patients with more serious needs. Patients benefit from being able to access the expertise of healthcare professionals at their fingertips. Their immediate needs can be met as they use the applications and view pertinent information at any time, without being charged the fee they would incur if they went in for a visit. These mobile health benefits are creating real efficiencies in our healthcare system.
Interestingly, a Frost and Sullivan study revealed that older Americans and their caregivers as well as patients with chronic conditions are downloading health apps at an increasing rate (4). The study notes that as the healthcare industry seeks to reduce costs, mobile health apps will become more prevalent (4). Hopefully the services provided by mobile healthcare applications will encourage patients to become engaged in their own healthcare and prevent unnecessary high costs deriving from patient revisits, co-pays and deductibles. Americans will begin to feel relief not just in the efficiency of service delivery, but also in the reassurance that their healthcare costs will finally start to decrease.
1) Alonso-Zaldivar, Ricardo. "Report: Spending tied to health slows." USA Today News. @2012 USA TODAY, 10/1/2012. Web. 6 Feb 2012. <http://www.usatoday.com/USCP/PNI/NEWS/2012-01-10-BCUSHealth-Care-Spending3rd-LdWritethru_ST_U.htm>.
2) "2011 Milliman Medical Index." Milliman Research Report. milliman.com, 05/2011. Web. 8 Feb 2012. <http://publications.milliman.com/periodicals/mmi/pdfs/milliman-medical-index-2011.pdf>.
3) Fox, Susannah. "Health Topics: 80% of internet users look for health information online." Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project , 01/02/2011. Web. 3 Feb 2012. <http://pewinternet.org/~/media/files/reports/2011/pip_healthtopics.pdf>.
4) Lewis, Nicole. "Mobile Health Apps Market Poised for Takeoff." Information Week Healthcare. @2012 UBM TechWeb, 18/01/2012. Web. 8 Feb 2012. <http://www.informationweek.com/news/healthcare/mobile-wireless/232400467>.
5) Reisinger, Don. "Gartner: Android market share to near 50 percent." CNET News. 2012 CBS Interactive, 07/04/2011. Web. 8 Feb 2012. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20095949-17/in-stat-majority-in-u.s-to-have-smartphones-tablets-by-2015/>.
Recent Posts
- Early Physical Therapy Referral Can Offer Great Low Back Pain Benefits
- Are patients tracking their own health?
- FORCE Packs deliver mobile flights of care for iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch
- Digital Patient Management and Tracking System for Physical Therapists
- Regulation of Medical Apps by the FDA: What qualifies as a “medical app”
Categories
- ACA
- android
- Apps
- Electronic Alerts
- EMR
- Evidence-based practice
- Fitness
- government
- healthcare
- HIPAA
- iphone
- mhealth
- News
- Patient Compliance
- Patient portal
- Physical Therapy
- Podcasts
- Politics
- Social Media
- Technology
- Video Exercise
Calendar
Tags
Meta
Stay Connected
