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Patient Overcoming Care Fatigue

Overcoming Care Fatigue with CarePICS

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Ongoing medical appointments can wear down wound care, peripheral artery disease (PAD), and critical limb ischemia (CLI) patients over time. The result? Care fatigue.

Tests, measurements, stressful travel, paperwork, and the wait to be poked and prodded can be physically and mentally exhausting. Many patients may start skipping follow-up appointments because it simply feels easier.

CarePICS is the key to helping your patients overcome care fatigue. The virtual care platform provides a personalized care experience that lessens appointment anxiety for current wound care patients and helps reach new patients through a virtual clinician network.

Help Nurture Strong Patient Relationships

Ninety percent of patients would choose talking to their doctor via video chat over in-person visits, according to a study by the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association. Virtual and telehealth care were already preferable before the COVID-19 pandemic — now they’ve become a valuable component for patient retention.

CarePICS is a HIPAA-compliant clinical coordination tool that revolutionizes convenience and helps improve patient outcomes. Patients no longer feel worn down by the stresses of transportation and clinical settings. The option of in-home appointments saves money, avoids conflicts with everyday life and eliminates concerns about exposing an at-risk population to potential hazards.

CarePICS also simplifies a clinician’s ability to maintain ongoing relationships with patients. The healthcare technology platform:

  • Provides secure, direct communication with patients
  • Tracks wound-healing progress for quick feedback on wounds, pain and other issues
  • Enables direct ordering of wound care products to get patients their supplies sooner

How to Attract New Patients

Coordinating complex patient care between primary care physicians (PCP), specialists and care teams is made easier with the CarePICS mobile and web app. Podiatrists, vascular surgeons and skilled nurses can utilize text, image and video sharing for better outcomes. This enhanced, effective communication strengthens clinical partnerships and increases the likelihood of referrals.

Providing access to patients who are local, an hour away and even across the country is another benefit of the platform. CarePICS removes barriers and opens channels between patient and PCP and PCP and specialist. With the simple app, you can become a coordination hub for a high-tech patient care team.

For More Information

Keep patients satisfied and engaged by improving the outcomes and growing a professional network to support their healthcare journeys. Visit our website to learn more about the CarePICS virtual care platform.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting, and automated medical supply ordering

patient-wound-care-advocacy

CarePICS Driven by a Passion for Wound Care Patient Advocacy

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You’ve heard about the transformative power of telehealth frequently in the last year. Indeed, telemedicine has helped medical practices continue providing excellent healthcare for patients during the pandemic.

Keeping ongoing connections with wound care and vascular patients is especially critical. Ensuring successful wound care is why CarePICS developed their virtual care platform that brings patients and provider teams closer together.

CarePICS has built a culture of collaboration around their remote clinical imagery system. Their mission is to:

Build a virtual community of providers that collaborate to improve clinical outcomes, remove barriers to care and make a lasting impact on the patients we serve

Their passion for wound care, and how they envision the future makes CarePICS stand apart!

Distance is Not Your Friend in Healthcare

CarePICS CEO Paul Schubert founded Medical Treatment Systems in 1981 to develop medical device markets, focusing on wound care and patient safety. Paul’s team gained vast wound care experience and knowledge, including seeing the impracticality of nurses traveling long distances to help wound care patients.

“Distance is not your friend in healthcare,” he explains. “So, I went to our Chief Strategy Officer Terry Williams, who has an extensive background in developing medical devices. We talked about the need for a technology that bridged the gap between doctors, patients and skilled nursing — and CarePICS was born.”  

“All of us at CarePICS believe we have a calling,” says Schubert. “Our team members have always worked to deliver medical devices to clinicians and enable better treatment possibilities for their patients. Our new virtual care platform is the culmination of that work.”

The CarePICS Difference

CarePICS differentiates itself by providing solutions that better connect patients and healthcare providers. Their innovative platform helps clinicians reach patients everywhere, streamline inefficiencies, reduce costs and improve patient satisfaction.

CarePICS is the only networking software that focuses on peripheral arterial disease (PAD) and chronic wounds.

“Simply put, we believe that by increasing collaboration between healthcare providers we can help keep more feet attached to more legs,” says Schubert. “Many of the patients helped by CarePICS would have needed amputations if they hadn’t been identified sooner. Every single CarePICS employee is proud of the difference they’ve made in patients’ lives. Every team member is a patient advocate.”

What’s Next for CarePICS?

It’s an exciting time for CarePICS. Minnesota-based Cardiovascular Systems, Inc. (CSI) recently invested in the platform. “Our partnership with CSI is the perfect opportunity to broaden our network of vascular and interventional specialists,” says Schubert.

Over the next two years, the CarePICS team is focused on setting up networks that concentrate on the lower limbs, and providing support to podiatrists and wound care clinics. The priority is creating channels that make the patient experience less expensive and less invasive, while lowering morbidity.

“We also want to facilitate getting patients to a vascular expert sooner,” says Schubert. “In some areas of the country over 40 percent of patients that have amputations have never had a vascular consult. This has only been exacerbated by COVID-19 quarantines. We believe our medical communities can lower that number using our enhanced specialized communication tools.”

For More Information

CarePICS provides an advantage for clinicians in the wound care space. We’ve developed our user-friendly, HIPAA-compliant mobile and web app from decades of experience and knowledge with a core value system built around advocating for wound care and vascular patients.

Visit our website to see our drive for evolving healthcare best practices and succeeding in our commitment to meeting the needs of healthcare providers and patients.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting, and automated medical supply ordering.

wound-care-improvement-messaging

Improving Wound Care with Secure, Direct Messaging

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What’s the best way to communicate with patients? The traditional method of confirming and following up on appointments used to be via a phone call. In 2021, patients — from all ages and demographics — prefer text messaging. CarePICS is the innovative, seamless technology that streamlines communication for wound care clinicians.

The user-friendly patient mobile app includes a HIPAA-compliant, direct messaging component that allows patients to contact you or your staff without having to give out your cell phone number. This ensures your patients stay medically compliant and promotes loyalty to your practice.

CarePICS also sends patients a text message when you request a virtual consult of a specialist on their behalf and informs them that the specialist’s practice will reach out to them to schedule an appointment, if necessary.

Helping the Patient Feel in Control

Text messages are less anxiety-inducing than phone calls for patients. According to Adobe Blog, texts have a 98% open rate and 90% of texts are read within 3 seconds. Texting also restores a degree of control for people who might feel overwhelmed by demands to make decisions on the spot.

Convenience is key for Americans. At-risk populations like wound care patients rely on convenience for comprehensive care. Satisfying a patient’s healthcare expectations contributes to their comfort and builds loyalty.

In addition, you can also keep patients coming back for your services by establishing a personal rapport and sense of familiarity with them. Secure, direct messaging is a great leveler — its directness and immediacy enhance the patient’s sense that the doctor is providing them a one-on-one experience.

The CarePICS Advantage

“CarePICS provides timely, holistic care through secure, direct messaging, voice-to-text, and photo or video sharing capabilities,” says Paul E. Schubert, CEO of CarePICS. Primary care physicians (PCPs) can exchange HIPAA-compliant data with patients and care partners across networks through a cloud-based secure server.

High-risk peripheral arterial disease (PAD), critical limb ischemia (CLI) and wound care patients benefit greatly from this streamlining of pre-procedure steps, appointments and post-procedure monitoring of healing progress:

  • Easier check-in process by giving the patient a way to communicate directly with their multi-specialty care team
  • Better telehealth visits by sharing images and video of wounds in real-time
  • Simpler follow-up care as CarePICS provides an effective solution for tracking and documenting wound-healing progress that also encourages ongoing patient relationships

With CarePICS, doctors easily share data and pictures through texts to the entire team of providers. And according to Schubert, “Most importantly, PCPs can consult with specialists for suggested treatments and to refer patients when necessary. We all know that physicians are busy, so it’s easier to provide them information and imagery through texts.”

For More Information

Discover the CarePICS solution! See how our data-sharing system for managing vascular and wound care patients works for you. Visit our website to learn how you can improve patient care and efficiency through clear communication tools.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting, and automated medical supply ordering.

Digital-healthcare-tools

How to Adopt Digital Healthcare Tools

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Implementing a new technology, software or mobile app into a healthcare environment can have challenges. Telemedicine is one digital healthcare tool that expanded dramatically this past year, but some practices may hesitate to embrace this new treatment model.

Remote clinical imaging systems have become essential tools for healthcare, especially wound care physicians. That’s why CarePICS created a change management primer to help you select and implement the right technology solution.

Barriers to Digital Healthcare Tool Execution

Why are so many attempts to implement digital change so frustrating? According to MITSloan Management Review, a survey of executives and managers in a wide range of industries says the pace of technology change in their organizations is too slow, mostly due to a lack of urgency.

The problem can be twofold in healthcare — a lack of understanding the technology itself and a staff’s ability to adopt. Many physicians experience these barriers to implementation:

  • Lack of ownership, planning and investment
  • Incomplete interdepartmental communication
  • IT issues and user error
  • Change fatigue brought on by a rapid pace or inconsistencies

5 Tips for Successful Technology Adoption

“An unfortunate myth is that doctors hate change,” says Dr. George Adams, Chief Medical Officer of CarePICS. “The truth is that they just want what’s best for their patients. Variations and inconsistencies might lead to patient harm.”

1. Determine the technology’s purpose and application

You want to avoid as much upheaval as possible. A new technology needs to seamlessly work within your team’s workflows.

Stakeholders and end users need to determine who will be using these digital tools and in what manner. “Avoid redundancies,” says Dr. Adams. “Trim the fat of any outdated practices and systems and establish what tasks, information and documentation benefit from the solution. The goal is to gain immediate benefits from streamlined and simplified processes.”    

2. Find technology made by healthcare experts, for healthcare experts

You need sustainable technologies that are speedily implemented and easy to adopt. Healthcare technology must also be designed with security, privacy and the latest regulations in mind.

Seek out technology that has been made with insight from clinicians who have real-world experience and knowledge.

You also want to form a relationship with the technology vendor for after the sale is over. Training and IT support will be important for guaranteeing a smooth implementation. 

3. Involve stakeholders in the vetting

Hospitals and physicians need staff buy-in if technological adoption is going to work. Include all potential end users on the care team in the initial vetting stages, including:

  • Primary Care Physicians (PCPs)
  • Nurses
  • Nurse practitioners
  • Specialists (such as podiatrists and vascular specialists)

This cross-functional group can evaluate degrees of comfort with the functionality, and how the technology can enhance patient care. User group enthusiasm is critical as they will have to utilize the technology or software on a daily basis. “They can also serve as advocates of the solution to other employees,” explains Dr. Adams.

4. Leadership support

Your user group can’t be the only champions of the new technology. You need a product champion – a designated internal leader who guide, mentor and support new users. With top-down support, you can avoid resistance, delays, employee dissatisfaction and, ultimately, loss of return on investment (ROI).

According to Dr. Adams, “Leaders can win hearts and minds by emphasizing how the new technology will have a positive impact on the staff’s workday. State your case clearly and demonstrate potential quick wins. You can also encourage adoption with rewards — but avoid penalties.”

5. Implementation vs. adoption — ensure your team is ready

You’ve made the decision. The system has been installed. You’ve downloaded the software. But while you may have hit your technology goal, implementation is not the same thing as adoption.

Morale is crucial. Everyone who uses the solution needs to be thoroughly trained. IT support should be readily available. And don’t be afraid to monitor and course correct. Feedback is key and involves everyone in the process. You win by making the new technology part of your company culture.

For More Information

“CarePICS understands the necessity of your clinical workflows and offers solutions that can easily standardize or simplify processes,” says Dr. Adams. “We partner with your organization to ensure a seamless integration of our remote clinical imagery system. We’ll train your staff and be there for you before and after you go live.”

Visit our website to find out how easily CarePICS can be integrated into your current workflows to increase efficiency, improve communication and reduce clerical work while treating patients with wounds and vascular disease.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting, and automated medical supply ordering.

The CarePICS app helps keep your practice stay HIPAA compliant

Protect Patient Data and Stay HIPAA Compliant with CarePICS

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New virtual healthcare technologies can improve personal patient-provider communication and care. However, some providers may hesitate at switching to a new technology platform and different methodologies. Maybe that’s because of change, maybe that’s because of protected health information (PHI) security.

With CarePICS, healthcare providers can do what they do best. Treat wound care, peripheral artery disease (PAD) and critical limb ischemia (CLI) patients — trusting our platform architecture’s security and compliance.

Protect Your Practice from HIPAA Violations

We all understand that HIPAA violations can severely impact a practice. State attorneys generals can assess fines up to $25,000 per violation category, per calendar year. The HHS Office for Civil Rights can issue fines up to $1.5 million per violation category, per calendar year, according to the HIPAA Journal.

The CarePICS app takes less work, improves accuracy and secures documentation. “Our app is 60% more accurate in taking wound care measurements versus a ruler,” says Terry Williams, Chief Strategy Officer for CarePICS. “If any providers are taking phones with just their regular phone cameras, it’s easy to violate HIPAA violations by using unsecure WiFi channels in public places.”

CarePICS — Simple, Seamless and Secure

CarePICS is a mobile and web app that helps treat vascular and wound care patients. Clinical staff and providers can view wound images and measurement data in real-time or store and share reports within HIPAA compliance guidelines.

Sharing occurs using any Internet connection — cellular data, Wi-Fi or local network-based communications channels. All of the data in the system is encrypted in transit and then rests behind a secure firewall. It’s only accessible using email and password-based authentication.

“Any protected health information (PHI) captured during an appointment is encrypted,” says Williams. “The PHI is then stored in Amazon servers behind a secure firewall with multifactor token authentication. CarePICS promises that peace of mind so you can easily connect with all patient care team members. Increased collaboration results in even better care.”

Security and Compliance for the CarePICS App

  • HIPAA compliance
  • SOC2
  • FDA-Class 1
  • Data encrypted at rest (AES 256)
  • Data encrypted in transit (HTTPS TLS 1.2)
  • Application data is siloed within the app and screenshots are detected and logged for administrative oversight
  • Backend data is secured behind AWS firewall security

For more information

Providers and healthcare practices can trust that the CarePICS platform secures your PAD, CLI and wound care patients’ information. Visit our website to learn how you can manage patients with wounds and vascular disease by requesting a free trial.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting and automated medical supply ordering.

Patient-telehealth

Helping Patients Remotely — Leveraging Telehealth Codes

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Telemedicine and telehealth services have evolved into an innovative option for healthcare. But can providers expect to receive robust reimbursements from insurance and Medicare similar to in-person services?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) offered guidance to broaden access to telemedicine and telehealth in the Proposed Physician Fee Schedule published in August 2020. These new rules allow doctors and practitioners to meet the direct supervision requirement of “incident-to-billing” through remote supervision.

Now you can use these rules to achieve your practice growth goals. CarePICS simplifies the telehealth workflow for your practice and tracks those activities. Read below for resources to support the successful adoption of telehealth, including policy changes and advice for how to code and bill for remote management of patients.

CMS Healthcare Policy Changes

Both commercial payors and CMS have dragged their heels in the past over formal policy decisions on telemedicine. Consequently, many healthcare providers have been hesitant to invest the time, money and resources into telehealth due to concerns over reimbursement.

The COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE), however, has cleared up misconceptions and prioritized urgent shifts in access to healthcare. Many states require commercial payors to reimburse for telemedicine while payors in states without reimbursement laws often cover telemedicine anyway. After a year of wearing masks and social distancing, “almost three-quarters of Americans surveyed said the pandemic has made them more eager to try virtual care,” says Harvard Health Publishing.

COVID-19 has revealed the potential of telehealth. According to the American College of Cardiology, “The rule finalizes policy changes to maintain certain elements of the various telehealth flexibilities authorized on a temporary basis during the COVID-19 PHE, with some proposals made permanently.” The CMS policy ensures that physicians can deliver expedient healthcare, second opinions from diverse voices and a full continuum of care for patients all across the country.

What Codes to Use for Telehealth Reimbursement

Telehealth appointments and virtual consultations come in many forms — telephone, video chat, text messaging, email, patient portals. CarePICS can keep you connected with your peripheral artery disease, critical limb ischemia and wound care patients and provide the best possible care.

Use these telehealth and virtual health procedure codes as you work with patients and other providers, using secure CarePICS technology. (Values are CMS par values.)

  • G0406-G0408: Follow-up inpatient consults, $39.85-$105.38, 13-35 minutes
  • G0425-G0427: Telehealth consults, ER, inpatient, $102.13-$205.50, 30-70 minutes
  • G2010: Patient report for established patient, $12.12, patient shares captured video or images
  • G2012: Remote check-in for established patient, $14.81, provider call to check patient
  • 99201-99205: New patient office visit, $45.79-$210.45, 10-60 minutes
  • 99211-99215: Established patient office visit, $22.70-$146.87, 5-40 minutes
  • 99451: Virtual consult given, $37.10, 5 minutes
  • 99452: Virtual consult requested, $37.10, 5 minutes
  • 99446-99449: Virtual consult given over 5 minutes, $18.58-$74.50, 10-31+ minutes

For more information

2021 will be a year of flux for the healthcare industry. CarePICS’ team of community-minded experts are committed to providing a curated and reliable list of telehealth and virtual health procedure codes. Visit our website to see how we’re creating a smart way to manage patients with wounds and vascular disease while generating new revenue opportunities for medical practices.

About CarePICS

CarePICS® is a HIPAA-compliant telehealth platform designed to manage vascular disease and wound care patients. CarePICS enables virtual consults, telehealth visits, clinical image reporting, and automated medical supply ordering.