Telemedicine News & Updates 10-17-2018

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Posted By: Annmarie Budniak October 17, 2018

NextGen Healthcare Announces New Telehealth Capability
NextGen Healthcare, Inc. (@nextgen), provider of ambulatory-only technology solutions, announced its partnership with telehealth vendor OTTO Health to bring virtual visit capability to NextGen Enterprise clients. This partnership integrates the OTTO Health (@OTTOHealth) telehealth application with the NextGen Enterprise platform, allowing clients a more productive way to meet consumer demand, expand patient access and volume, and reduce overhead. While all patients will have the convenience of seeing their NextGen provider without needing to be present for a face to face encounter, this will particularly benefit patients in rural areas, senior citizens, and patients with disabilities that otherwise would have difficulty traveling to their physician.

TeleHealth Services Interactive Patient Education Helps Hospitals Address National Opioid Crisis
CoxHealth, a six-hospital, community-based, not-for-profit health system, has developed a successful strategy to address opioid misuse through proactive patient education enabled, in part, by using their interactive patient television system from TeleHealth Services (@TeleHealth_Svcs). Results from a pilot implementation showed increased patient engagement and improved patient satisfaction, demonstrating success in the strategy that is now being implemented system wide.

19Labs partners with American Well to offer GALE Telehealth 2.0 point of care solutions
19Labs (@19_labs), the creator of GALE Telehealth 2.0 point of care solutions, announced a new partnership to offer American Well (@AmericanWell) customers access to GALE Kiosks and Tablets solutions. Together, the companies will enable employers, schools and nursing facilities a full comprehensive remote examination and also the ability to create branded, customizable and affordable Telehealth 2.0 experience.

Teladoc Health Appoints Care Delivery Expert Dr. Mark Smith to Board of Directors
Teladoc Health (@teladochealth), a virtual care provider, is pleased to announce, the appointment of Mark Douglas Smith, MD, MBA, to its board of directors. Dr. Smith is a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and a nationally-recognized health policy and delivery system expert.

Virtrial Offers a New Platform for Hybrid Clinical Trials
Virtrial recently announced the launch of a new telemedicine virtual trial platform. Virtrial’s secure, cloud-based platform affords pharmaceutical sponsors and CROs an opportunity to create and conduct clinical trials utilizing virtual visits. The advanced technology offers multiple modalities to engage patients and can be used on any device by any clinical trial site.

eWellness’ Expands Internal Hiring of Contract Management, Promotion and Technical Support Professionals Ahead of Planned December Launch of Workman’s Compensation Partnerships
eWellness Healthcare Corporation, a provider of the state of the art PHZIO platform for the physical therapy (PT) and telehealth markets, announced that it will be hiring contract management, promotion and tech support professionals to support the launch of its workman’s compensation partnerships.

Why Hospitals Will Increasingly Embrace Telemedicine
Forbes reports that a growing discussion about Accountable Care Organizations, which are designed to make healthcare providers accountable for patient outcomes, will hopefully keep more people out of the emergency room. Though this is promising, it’s very hard to improve outcomes especially in chronically ill patients when relying on a bricks-and-mortar model. By one estimate 20% to 30% of chronically ill people cannot even get transportation to their doctor’s office. How will their outcomes improve without a more holistic approach? The answer is in telemedicine.

3 Ways Telehealth Tackles Aging-Related Needs
HealthLeaders reports that with an aging population and a shrinking number of providers, a healthcare crisis looms on the horizon: care of the elderly.Health systems are tackling the needs of these patients through a variety of initiatives, and experts say that telehealth could play an increasingly important role in meeting future needs.

The Feds Break Up a $1 Billion Telehealth Scam
Digital healthcare in general and telehealth in particular aren’t immune to healthcare fraud. Recently, the U.S Department of Justice through the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee indicted four individuals and seven companies on 32 counts of fraud for allegedly trying to bilk the government out of $1 billion in prescription payments from telehealth visits.

Upcoming Events:

ATA2019 Annual Conference and Expo
What: ATA019 Annual Conference and Expo
When: April 14-16, 2019
Where: New Orleans, LA
Hashtag: #ATA19

ATA2019 Annual Conference and Expo – At ATA2019, healthcare professionals and leaders from an array of healthcare and technology sectors unite as one, cohesive community. Attendees learn, innovate, network, and return to their organizations with actionable insights, long-lasting connections, and an enhanced appreciation of telehealth—and how it transforms the way we deliver healthcare.

CMS Covered Telehealth Services
You can download the list of services payable under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule when furnished via telehealth on the CMS website.

Center for Connected Health Policy (CCHP)
The Center for Connected Health Policy (@CCHPCA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization working to maximize telehealth’s ability to improve health outcomes, care delivery, and cost effectiveness. Follow CCHP for the latest in telehealth policy and news.