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Products & Technology
health data system interoperability and eprescription for HME. In fact, Knowlton chairs the CommonWell Health Alliance board of directors and has been involved in the Alliance since it was founded roughly nine years ago. CommonWell is a group of various healthcare technology stakeholders that aim to create links between disparate healthcare data systems to securely connect patient records and data services across those systems.
Also, the Covid-19 public health emer- gency helped accelerate the adoption epre- scribe for HME.
“I’d say since we formed, we’re seeing an uptick, and I think the rest of the eprescribe
platforms are as well,” says Dan Starck, CEO of Apria and chair of DMEScripts’ board of directors.
Starck adds that the number of platforms out there and the expanding range of claims they support is also helping drive adoption. This helps providers continue to specialize.
“Not only DME but also medical supplies, and diabetes supplies,” he says. “As those product lines continue to be built out and are facilitated through the eprescribe platforms, the more advantageous it becomes or easier to send the referrals to multiple providers or suppliers.”
Another factor that is helping to drive the uptake of eprescription for home medical
equipment is the fact that referral partners are seeing eprescription spread across post- acute care in general, Knowlton says. That creates an expectation on the part of refer- ring physicians.
“Once referrals experience the ease of elec- tronic referrals and electronic orders, they start to expect it elsewhere,” he explains. “So we’ve seen a great increase in other home-based care settings, such as home health and hospice.
“And we are seeing very large upticks now appearing in the HME and equipment space,” he adds. “I think the progression that we’ve seen in the past year has been tremendous in terms of the number of physi- cians enrolled in various networks. Be they ordering from a standalone platform, such as Parachute, GoScripts, or DMEScripts, or leveraging specialty platforms or direct from EHR integrations.
PROVIDER BENEFITS
Eprescription offers a lot to providers. For starters, it’s a massive efficiency gain in the way that providers work with referral and their patients.
“There’s a huge opportunity that still exists
“When we talk about eprescribe,
we’re talking about getting any type of order or documentation over from the referral sources that is going to help the HME take care of a patient or obtain reimbursement.”
— Nick Knowlton, Brightree LLC
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