Page 9 - HME Business, May/June 2020

VENDORS ALSO RESPOND
Of course manufacturers and service providers in the industry are stake- holders as well, and they too have been contributing efforts to help HME providers deal with the COVID-19 PHE. Here are some of the actions taken by companies serving HME providers:
Glooko Offers Free Remote Diabetes Care During COVID-19
To provide relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, Glooko (glooko.com) began providing a no-charge remote-care solution that delivers secure, live patient-to- clinician connectivity.
Glooko provides various digital health and workflow tools to improve diabetes care and commu- nicate and monitor diabetes patients in more than 20 countries.
The company made the move to help reduce in-person contact as part of the global need to curtail the spread of COVID-19. This is especially important for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, as they appear to be at a higher risk of contracting the virus.
“For certain appointments, health- care professionals may determine that the patient and their care team would be best served by a remote review of the patient’s personal diabetes data and a corresponding telehealth consult, reserving in-office visits only for those appointments where a patient’s medical status truly requires in-person treatment,” a statement from the company read.
BOC Offers Remote-Proctored Testing
Accrediting organization Board of Certification/Accreditation (BOC; bocusa.org) unveiled a remote-proc- tored testing option to help HME professionals complete certification exams while maintaining social distancing during the PHE.
BOC stated it had planned to add remote-proctored testing as an option later in 2020, but since the public health emergency forced many testing centers to temporarily close, the accrediting organization and its exam delivery partner, PSI, worked to fast-track the service.
“We want the DMEPOS commu- nity to know that completing career development goals is possible, even in our ‘new normal,’” said
BOC’s Credentialing Director Matthew Gruskin, MBA, BOCO, BOCPD. “With this option for the Certified Orthotic Fitter (COF), Certified Mastectomy Fitter (CMF) and Certified Durable Medical Equipment Specialist (CDME) exams, certification candidates can advance their careers in a COVID- sensitive way and earn credentials that support them in their goal of quality patient care.”
WellSkyandQlikLaunch COVID-19 Heat Map
HME software company WellSky (wellsky.com) and data analytics firm Qlik have launched the WellSky COVID-19 Tracker, a new COVID-19 heat map feature that aims to help providers keeptheirstaffandpatientssafe.
Knowing that healthcare workers arefacingshortagesofresources such as personal protective equip- ment (PPE), WellSky is giving its clients free access to the WellSky- Qlik heat map (info.wellsky.com/ wellsky-qlik-covid19-tracker.html) to trackthevirus’sspread.
Leveraging data analytics tech- nology donated by Qlik, providers can use the WellSky-Qlik heat map to track current outbreak hot spots, anticipate locations with increasing infection rates, and distribute valuable PPE resources based on locations where clinical staff need it most.
The heat map uses clinical staff zip code data to compare staff loca- tions against confirmed COVID-19 cases across the United States. By layering and blending this data, home-based care providers can see the PPE supply chain and where staff might need increased access to resources such as medical face masks, face shields, gloves, and gowns. This lets homecare providers better manage their PPE supply.
“Traditionally, home health has not been an industry that previ- ously used a lot of N95 masks and related protective supplies. But now we need quadruple the amount of the PPE that we needed before,” said Christina Smith, RN, BSN, MSN, corporate staff development coordi- nator for Medical Services of America’s home health and hospice teams. “With technology that tells us which geographic areas have outbreaks and whether our staff is located in thoseareas,wecanmakebetterPPE allocationdecisions.”
Management Solutions | Technology | Products
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nation’s front-line healthcare infrastructure.
“I think it’s elevated the HME industry,” says Mark Kassir, president and
CEO of America’s HealthCare at Home and newly appointed President (Mid-Atlantic) of Spiro Health. “Now, we hear, ‘You guys have the ventilators that all these hospitals are needing?’ ‘You can put oxygen on patients in the home and get them out of the hospital?’”
And while a lot of providers were feeling warm fuzzies over the raised profile for the industry, some stakeholders were starting to get a shiver down their spine. Why? That hard-earned clout can go up in a puff of smoke if gets abused.
To that point, officials from both AAHomecare and VGM Government Relations released letters to the industry urging providers that with CMS’s relaxations of various coverage requirements, providers should judiciously apply the policy guidance and keep a sharp eye out for anyone taking advantage of the relaxed policies.
A statement from AAHomecare reminded providers that CMS’s relax- ations in coverage criteria were implemented to help HME providers provide care during challenging conditions, and that providers should follow not only the “letter of the law” but the “spirit of the law,” to maintain both the goodwill, and hopefully some of the new guidelines.
Simply put, a lot is riding on how providers conduct themselves under these relaxed guidelines, according to Gary Sheehan, president and CEO of Cape Medical Supply and newly appointed CEO of Spiro Health.
“I hope HME continues to represent itself with the level of response and ethics frankly that they need to,” he says. “And if they do I think coming out of it will be thought of in a much better light than we have historically.”
And if that favorable impression continues, it could lead to some relaxed policy guidelines staying relaxed.
TELEHEALTH
Bearing that in mind, one policy change that providers are betting will stick around is telehealth— so much so that they’re investing in the tech- nology. Can you blame them? All their referral partners want increased telehealth usage, and so do their patients. It saves time and money.
“It has not been a lack of willingness for patients or a technology limitation for physicians,” Sheehan explains. “It’s been the inability of the payer and regulatory community to step up and take this in the direction it should be going and given that it’s 2020.”
So when the COVID-19 outbreak started spreading globally, Sheehan said his business started looking into implementing it.
“We made the decision very early; March 12,” he says. “We made the decision based on what we were seeing. Then, starting the following Monday, March 16, we were going to 100 percent remote setup, telehealth consults prior to setup, and post setup.”
If anything, the push toward telehealth is part of a larger “megatrend” that is being felt by many sectors of the economy: the need for social distancing has caused people to reexamine how they conduct business, not just health- related business.
“I think the entire global economy is going to look substantially different coming out of this in terms of remote work and work from home,” Sheehan says, joking, “I’m certainly glad I’m not a commercial real estate executive right now ... . But in terms of HMEs specifically, the regulatory relaxation that we saw and the speed at which we saw it get adopted, I think spoke to how ridiculous some of these existing regulations were frankly.”
When it comes to HME, some of the relaxed guidelines will likely stay, Sheehan explains, while others remain. It’s a give-and-take between what will make sense after the PHE is quelled and new working methods have become rooted in place.
“I don’t think prior authorization is gone forever, and I don’t think that all of Medicare’s relaxed guidelines are going to be left in place,” he says. “I think the relaxations will be in place for quite a while as this thing comes and goes — based on what scientists are saying.” n