Becker's Hospital Review

53 CIO / HEALTH IT 'It's just the right thing to do': Why these 2 health systems slashed virtual visit prices By Jackie Drees H ackensack (N.J.) Meridian Health has begun offering free virtual visits for patients who are at least 65 years old along with $20 virtual visits for all other pa- tients seeking care for COVID-19. While the health system will probably sus- tain a financial loss by reducing visit costs, the benefit of virtual care during the pan- demic outweighs the financial effect, om- as Bader, MD, vice president of medical quality at Hackensack Meridian Health, told Becker's Hospital Review. "Every health system is dealing with the challenge of the changed environment due to COVID-19. We perceived [reducing tele- medicine costs] would be a way for us to better manage the flow and perhaps reduce the burden on our emergency department," Dr. Bader said. "My guess is that the net will probably be a financial loss, but in terms of looking at what we need to do to both serve the population and manage all our health- care delivery resources, we thought this was the right move." Prior to the pandemic, telemedicine had been a "very tiny" component of Hackensack Me- ridian's business, according to Dr. Bader. Be- cause of this, the health system will not expe- rience a significant financial loss by offering free visits. "It's a pretty easy step to take. It's the right thing," he said. "Maybe it's going to cost us a little bit of money, but it's probably going to make it easier for us to get through this. But again, it's still a tiny piece of what we do, even if it increases by 500 percent, it shis from be- ing very, very tiny to just tiny." Despite its limited financial effect, the ad- justed virtual visit prices coupled with social distancing recommendations and insurance relaxations have resulted in a more than 500 percent increase in visit volume. To navigate this shi in care delivery, Hackensack Merid- ian distributed 1,000 laptops to its physicians to help them maintain face-to-face interac- tions with patients through video chat. e health system also began reassigning some of its physicians whose work has slowed down to do telemedicine consults. Chicago-based CommonSpirit Health is also navigating physician demands aer reducing virtual visit prices. e health sys- tem recently began offering telemedicine visits to patients experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 at no cost. To meet the visit demands, CommonSpirit has been onboarding thousands of its physi- cians to both the scheduled visit capabilities and the virtual urgent care platform to help alleviate the virtual demand, said Suja Chan- drasekaran, senior executive vice president and chief information and digital officer at CommonSpirit. "Demand continues to grow and more phy- sicians are being added every day, with a goal of seeing thousands of patients virtual- ly each day," she told Becker's. "While wait times for virtual urgent care visits are a bit higher than we'd like – sometimes as long as an hour – in general, we are meeting the de- mand for the service." Many of CommonSpirit's clinicians have been able to start using the healthcare plat- forms aer CMS waived telemedicine re- strictions for Medicare members in March, according to Ms. Chandrasekaran. With the loosened restrictions, CMS will pay clini- cians to provide telemedicine services for beneficiaries during the pandemic. Virtual care is "an important investment" be- cause the health system anticipates telemed- icine becoming a more standard healthcare delivery approach even aer the pandemic. However, the health system's main focus for now is ensuring that anyone who needs care has access to it, making virtual visits key to its COVID-19 response. "In the longer term, there will be a time to focus on the revenue cycle and our hope is that these types of visits, and insurance coverage for them, will become more the norm," she said. n How 4 hospitals are using their EHRs to optimize COVID-19 care By Jackie Drees H ospitals and health systems across the U.S. have developed EHR features in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, from streamlining screenings to facilitating quicker communication between specialists. Here are four hospitals that have built new EHR tools in response to the coro- navirus pandemic: 1. UChicago Medicine implemented a virtual screening questionnaire through its EHR to help patients who are concerned they have symptoms of COVID-19. The screening categorizes patients into three categories, and from there, UChicago Medicine can determine which patients need to be tested. 2. UC San Diego Health researchers built several COVID-19 specific tools with- in their Epic EHR, including screening protocols; system-level EHR templates; inpatient, emergency department and ambulatory order panels; reporting and analytics; communication channels; and patient-facing technology. 3. Worcester-based UMass Memorial Medical Center deployed a new func- tion in its EHR system that allows clinicians to message medical questions to an infection control provider. Messages that providers send can be attached to patient names, which allows the on-call provider to access the patient's medi- cal record and help provide treatment recommendations. 4. Providence in Renton, Wash., created an EHR toolkit in late January after identifying its first case of COVID-19. The health system built an EHR screening tool that asks patients detailed questions about their symptoms and recent travel experiences to identify potential cases of COVID-19. n

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