The first article in this series focused on the basics of telehealth for primary care. This included definitions, benefits, and examples. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out here! Now, we’re going to dive deeper into telehealth innovations and challenges. I’m excited for the future of telemedicine opportunities, and hope you are too. 

As Season 2 of BoPC’s podcast keeps reminding us, relationship is a key component to high value health care. Certainly, frequency of visits aids in building a trusting relationship. But we sometimes forget that helping a patient feel cared for plays an even greater role. Proximity, touch, compassion, and empathy all facilitate this feeling. Sitting at eye level, within a few feet of a person shows them you’re engaged and, in turn, engages them.

I had the honor and pleasure once of sitting in on a broadcasted conversation with Faisel Syed, MD on the Sacred Patient-Physician Relationship. (Faisel and Friends) That discussion got me thinking more about the special rapport needed between the Person we call the Patient and the Healer for healthcare to be effective and to optimally create value.

As more practices and organizations pursue the principles of value-based care (VBC), they look for ways to improve their financial outcomes, the drivers of net revenue. Part 1 of this series focused on some of the main determinants of gross revenue in VBC and how to increase the size of the gross revenue bucket, or pie, depending on how hungry you are. These next installments will speak to the ways of decreasing medical costs, thereby increasing the risked savings to be shared or kept, decreasing the amount of pie eaten by medical expenses, thereby increasing the remainder in the bucket after expenses are paid.

It’s no news that the U.S. has been experiencing a primary care shortage, but the impact of that shortage is now being seen on the patient side according to a recent study from FAIR Health, a nonprofit that collects data on privately billed and Medicare health insurance claims.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been in a series discussing Accountable Care Organizations, or ACOs. We began this month by reviewing “What is an ACO and what do you need to know about them?”, and we continued last week by giving some tips to answer the question “Is your practice ready to join an ACO?”.

The CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) has produced many directives recently, many of which deal with the future of value based care. A 2021 strategy statement summarized the vision of CMMI, with these two statements showing how to measure progress.