Payors: Public/Private Government/Insurance
- Better Quality of Care
- Better Remote Monitoring
- Better Data
- Reduced Cost
- Reduced Hospital Readmission
- Reduced Loss
Better Quality of Care
Technology can be a valuable asset to improving the quality of life for patients and their families facing problems associated with aging and even life-threatening illnesses. Seniors want to stay at home and keeping seniors at home not only improves their quality of life, it also reduces the cost to payors. As an example, published reports show that homecare saves the government 95% of the cost for Hospital care.
We need to care for more people at home. Imagine not having to go to the hospital or travel to a physician or clinic to be examined. Time, travel and the associated risks can all be reduced with the adoption of digital health technology.
Reminders, telemedicine, video conferencing, remote monitoring all included with the RxPense, can help patients feel connected with the comfort of knowing help will be provided when needed.
Technology now facilitates homecare and virtual visits at a fraction of the cost of traditional appointment. As an example, over 70% of common non-emergency medical concerns can be diagnosed and treated remotely. Keeping patients in touch with their circle of care, their families, caregivers and healthcare providers ultimately increases the quality of care received.
The RxPense improves care by controlling, securing and dispensing as-needed medications. It also ensures the patient is connected to their circle of care, 24×7. Patients may be remotely monitored. Vital collected at the time of medication consumption can be accessed by authorized personnel in the patient portal.
Better Remote Monitoring
Our healthcare system is focused on treating patients under direct medical care. Those with chronic conditions such as COPD and Chronic Heart Failure do not usually self-manage well. The result is that they commonly fall back in to the hospital in need of urgent care. It is important that we better assist people with these chronic conditions to remain at home longer. Better self-management through technology and connected devices help patients stay home and keep them connected to their physicians who may remotely monitor and receive alerts as soon as an event occurs.
Increasingly, hospitals with high re-admission rates are being penalized, financially. Insurance companies and Payors are demanding better outcomes. The solution may be RxPense®! RxPense® can help patients remain at home or clinic, longer. Checkout the potential ROI on using a self-monitoring solution like RxPense®.
Telemedicine
According to a recent news release by WinterGreen Research, the “cost of tele-medicine for the US veterans administration is $1,630 per patient per annum”. By comparison, nursing home and facility care programs cost $100,000 per annum. The Veterans Hospital Administration implementation was a very positive experience and cost-effective way of managing chronic care patients in both urban and rural settings.
Digital Health Wearables
RxPense Portal Data
Better Data
Monitoring, diagnosis and support are only as good as the data they can access. The RxPense hub collected medication adherence and consumption information, along with access logs, images and video to ensure the right pills are dispensed to the right patient at the right time. A complete audit trail is maintained for each user.
The RxPense Portal securely stores patient data and allows access only to approved and authenticated circle of care members. In addition to the medication information, patient medical and personal information is collected. Vitals, collected via Bluetooth connected wearables, may also be consolidated in the patient portal.
Payors may offer incentives to patients to maintain better adherence. As an potential concept, patients who achieve a 100% adherence record, might realize a substantial discount on their insurance costs. As is currently being rolled out to the automobile drivers, those who agree to use a mobile app while driving and maintain a good driving record are entitled to a 30% discount. Of course, to determine whether their driving is good, or if a patient has been adherent to their meds, data must be collect. The RxPense collect this data, 24x7x365.
Reduced Cost & Readmission
Hospital readmissions can have an impact on quality performance measures. As patients are readmitted, your credibility and revenue decreases due to these metrics and fines. For example, there are many disease states that typify higher readmission rates. Compounded with medication non-adherence, or strictly due to medication non-adherence, Medipense can help your patients remain adherent, longer.
It costs over $11,000/day for intensive care, $3,000 for acute care and $1,000 for an ER visit in Canada. The average cost in Canada of a stay in hospital is about $6,000/day[8]. The cost of homecare is calculated at $55 per day.
“While the estimated capital cost of a new long-term care bed is $320,000, the operating cost of each new long-term care bed is approximately $75,000 per year.”[7]. That is about $200 per day per patient. After 4.3 years, it costs more to operate than build. Since the average new bed is forecasted to last 9 years, the average bed ends up costing about twice as much to operate as it does to build. Effectively the total daily cost for a LTC bed is a little over $300.
The Cost of Hospital Readmission[2]
Nearly 18 percent of Medicare patients who had been hospitalized were readmitted within a month
The latest statistics for Medicare patients in the USA peg the cost of readmissions at $26 Billion. The interesting fact is that $17 Billion is preventable!
CMS will penalize Hospitals $280 Million for readmissions.
Reduced Insurance and Liability Cost
With a remote monitored solution, any anomaly is reported and all events are recorded. Adherence and health sensory data are all stored in a secure audit trail. With a tap of the finger or click of a mouse, relevant patient data is instantly available correlating medication consumption, dosage and vitals in an easy to understand, detailed report.
Cause and effect can now be understood. Emergency notifications can save lives. Patients can remain at home longer. Isn’t that a better outcome for everyone?
Medication Loss or Theft
High value/potency medications are disappearing from hospitals at an amazing rate. Opioids like morphine, hydromorphone, oxycodone, codeine, and fentanyl, over-prescribed and over distributed, as reported in recent media, seem to be impossible to control. Their pain relieving characteristics are unparalleled, but recent addictive properties, overdoses and black market activities have made these high value medications, even more valuable. Why are opioids disappearing? Lack of of security. Lack of control. Lack of penalty. Every time controlled drugs go missing from a pharmacy, hospital, transport company or other facility, details about the loss must be reported to Health Canada within 10 days. However, the reason they went missing does not need to be specified.In fact, according to Health Canada, 77% of medication losses that were properly reported, were listed as “unexplained”.
“A majority of the nearly nine million doses that were stolen or unaccounted for over those five years were highly addictive opioid painkillers, such as oxycodone, hydromorphone and codeine. In about one-third of the cases, there was no explanation for how they went missing.” according to a recent CBC report.[3]
“Pharmacies and pharmacy professionals are responsible for the safe and proper management—including storage, dispensing, documentation and inventory reconciliation—of all drugs under their control,” wrote Todd Leach, spokesman for the Ontario College of Pharmacists.[4]
Failure to maintain any of the standards of accreditation is considered to be an act of proprietary misconduct which can trigger a disciplinary action at the Ontario College of Pharmacists and lead to the revocation of a pharmacy licence.[4]
In spite of the massive losses we’ve experienced and in spite of the reporting requirements, there has not been a single case of an in-hospital based pharmacy being fined or penalized. So where is the incentive to tighten control? Is it the threat of possible penalties? or the stigma of being a major supplier of opioids ultimately to the black market? Within a hospital-based system, we have nurses, doctors, pharmacists, technicians and personal support workers.
In the USA, CNN recently reported: Opioid shortages leave US hospitals scrambling[5]. Could this be due to theft? In this case it may be related to the reduction in manufacturing attributed to government crackdowns on the use of opioids. The net result is that patients in hospitals still need opioids, but with a reduced supply, the opioids in hospitals need to better controlled and regulated.
If you want improved medication management, you need the RxPense!
High Tech Cure
The RxPense can offer an immediate solution to controlled dispensing of high value medications in a hospital setting. How? By ensuring that the right drug is administered to the right patient in the right dose by the right route at the right time – Also known as the 5 R’s.
The RxPense was developed by examining each of these “R’s” and engineered to also mitigate human factors. In following the path of medications from the time of dispensing by the pharmacist, up to and including consumption by the patient the RxPense automates reminding, dispensing, notifying and auditing. The RxPense is an invaluable addition to a staffed facility.
- Security: medications are locked up and only available to authorized personnel. Authentication biometrics, pin codes and passwords, image capture and audit trail recording ensure compliance and ease monitoring and identification.
- Control: Only meds authorized for a specific patient may be dispensed, and only at the specified times and intervals. Everything is logged.
- Penalty: All adverse events are immediately recorded and reported. Theft, improper dispensing and loss may be significantly reduced.
2- Medicare Fines 2,610 Hospitals In Third Round Of Readmission Penalties
3- https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/missing-drugs-pharmacies-part1-1.4708041
4- https://www.macleans.ca/society/health/unexplained-losses-of-opioids-on-the-rise-in-canadian-hospitals/
5- https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/19/health/hospital-opioid-shortage-partner/index.html
6- http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.03.008
7- Gibbard, Robyn. Sizing Up the Challenge: Meeting the Demand for Long-Term Care in Canada. Ottawa: The Conference Board of Canada, 2017.
8- The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). Health Expenditures in the Provinces and Territories — Provincial and Territorial Chartbook, 2019. Ottawa, ON: CIHI; 2019.
Medication Adherence Solutions for
