Our conversation about direct access flowed into marketing, and about how our limited marketing strategies were once to make office calls and drop off prescription pads in the doctors’ offices.  Recognizing how things have changed, we both noted that we have learned to embrace technology as an integral part of our practices and our current marketing strategies.  We both agreed that technology will only continue to influence the expansion of clinical practice and that growing with technology is essential to thrive.

With technological advances on warp speed, community marketing of our practices must keep pace.  Patients themselves are now among our greatest referral sources as direct access has empowered patients to be more involved in choosing their providers.  Helping them easily find us is our best new strategy.

An overwhelming majority of people search the internet for information about businesses, including health care practices.  They look for local websites and read reviews. While seeking up-to-date information, they are curious to know and understand the experiences of others like them.  Reading positive experiences helps reassure potential patients that they will likely have a positive experience themselves.

A digital marketing platform can turn one positive experience into more positive experiences in a few ways.  One, a patient who is a promoter of the practice can have a broad scope of influence – more than just the people they know personally – by taking a few minutes to write a review or testimonial to the practice.   Two, the process can be streamlined as part of a workflow that we in the clinic are already doing.  Three, we as therapists can spend time focused on what we love – treating patients – and allow the patient reviews to support us in providing high quality care, impacting our communities and assisting more of our neighbors and friends to return to the function and lifestyle they love.

For more info on FOTO’s Marketing Suite Platinum, featuring DMS, check out this on-demand demo.

The post Why Your Patients are Your Greatest Referral Source appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

Therapists can reduce the time they spend on paperwork and increase the time they spend with patients by using electronic patient-reported outcomes measures (PROM). These measures offer powerful reporting that can be helpful in planning treatment, elevating patient satisfaction and improving reimbursement. Despite the availability of electronic PROMs, though, more than half of clinicians who responded to a 2019 survey conducted by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) indicated they capture PROMs data by using paper forms that are cumbersome and sometimes inaccurate.
     To understand what facilities miss by continuing to use paper surveys, three physical therapists explain how FOTO’s Outcomes Manager, an outcomes management system that measures and manages patient-reported data, helps generate PROMs that improve their clinical care and financial positions.

Who doesn’t use PROMs?

     While most therapists use PROMs, there still remains a large segment of practitioners who don’t take advantage of this important clinical tool. In fact, only about 60% of physical therapists use PROMs during routine clinical practice, according to Mark Werneke, PT, MS, Dip. MDT, a member of the research board for FOTO. While that figure represents a majority of therapists within that group, Werneke notes approximately 50% capture PROMs data using paper surveys.
    The problem with those paper surveys, Werneke explains, is the burden they place on patients and therapists. For therapists, he says, the burden is significant enough that it has become one reason many refuse to administer PROM surveys during everyday practice.
    “Among therapists, that increased burden is felt in the length of time it takes to score and analyze the survey data, then manually record that data in the electronic medical record (EMR),” Werneke says.
     The cumbersome nature of paper surveys may be felt throughout the entire office, according to Michelle Young, PT, OCS, Cert. MDT, Team Leader at Valley Health Systems, Winchester, Va. Young says most healthcare organizations now use EMRs that require paper surveys to be scanned in order to be added to the record, thereby creating additional work for the front desk.
    Fortunately FOTO’s Outcomes Manager provides an electronic means of capturing PROMs data that is fast, efficient, reduces or eliminates the cost for printer ink and paper, and is compatible with many practice management software systems.

Speed it up with computer-adaptive testing

     One of the technologies FOTO’s Outcomes Manager uses to reduce the time therapists and patients spend on paperwork is Computer Adaptive Testing (CAT). Werneke explains that CAT is a method of scoring and collecting PROM data in which the computer tailors physical activity questions to the patient by matching the difficult level of that question to the patient’s direct ability. Because CAT minimizes the number of assessment questions asked without increasing PROM measurement error, the burden experienced by patients and therapists is reduced while the precision of PROM measurement is maintained.
     Compared to old-style paper surveys that require a clinician to read a document that may contain 20-30 questions asking about a patient’s specific condition, CAT significantly improves the accuracy and efficiency of the data the assessment provides, according to J.W. Matheson, PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS, owner and clinical director of Catalyst Sports Medicine, Hudson, Wis.

     “Clinicians can receive detailed insight about where a patient lies across functional levels or stages,” Matheson says. “Also, using a CAT provides therapists with fine-tuned answers using fewer test items, since patients are only tested with the question volume as necessary to prove where they are functionally,” he adds.

     How much time can this technology save? For practices that have CAT and use FOTO’s Outcomes Manager, Young says, seven minutes is the average time a patient needs to complete the PROM.

Despite the availability of electronic PROMs, though, more than half of clinicians who responded to a 2019 survey conducted by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) indicated they capture PROMs data by using paper forms that are cumbersome and sometimes inaccurate.

Risk adjustment: apples to apples

     Rehab patients must necessarily be associated with certain categories or classifications based on age, presentation, comorbidities and other factors that can muddy the waters when it comes to judging the quality of care. Risk adjustment levels the playing field so that therapists who treat more difficult patients are not penalized for non-modifiable factors.
     Young offers an example of how this can have a positive effect on payer reimbursement:

     “Clinic A is a sports medicine clinic treating a knee replacement patient who is relatively healthy. Clinic B is a hospital-based outpatient clinic treating a Medicaid patient who also had a knee replacement, along with six or seven co-morbidities.

     “When each facility does its intake on FOTO’s Outcomes Manager, the therapist gets a prediction related to all of the patient’s risk-adjustment categories. This creates a statistically level playing field in terms of prediction and outcome between Clinic A and Clinic B by adjusting for the factors that create risk between those two different patients. It compares apples to apples,” Young explains.

     This is particularly important in a pay-for-performance scenario, Young says, because it allows clinics and their performance to be compared across categories.
     Changes in healthcare occur at a rapid pace that can make it easy for practices to be left behind. However, using FOTO’s Outcomes Manager to underwrite clinical efficiency and patient satisfaction can help practices adjust their behaviors to thrive and remain competitive in a changing marketplace.

The post Using Patient-Reported Outcomes Assessments to Save Time, Improve the Patient Experience and Boost Reimbursement appeared first on FOTO Patient Outcomes.

Knoxville, TN – June 14, 2018 – Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes, Inc. (FOTO) accepted an invitation by the U.S. House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health to offer guidance on how Congress may assist the medical industry to create new policies to improve healthcare.  

FOTO provided to Congress detailed insights about pay-for-performance policies, using data from its Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures database of nearly 22 million patient assessments. Specifically, FOTO demonstrated the effectiveness of a value-based healthcare payment program using risk-adjusted performance measures, and provided results from a value-based payment pilot study using FOTO performance measures that resulted in a 12 percent cost savings.

The Congressional Ways and Means Committee hearing, chaired by Peter Roskam (R-IL), was the second in a series on Innovation in Health Care. The hearing focused on innovative practices and technology that physicians and other providers are implementing. The Committee is seeking ways to modernize the U.S. healthcare system, improve healthcare delivery, encourage care providers to be accountable for outcomes, and innovate a payment system that emphasizes value-based care.

“Our national healthcare system is in need of a significant overhaul, and we are proud to contribute FOTO’s vast experience and lessons learned from our robust scientific methods, technology, database and innovative approaches to measure, report, and encourage value-driven care,” said Deanna Hayes, Director of Research at Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes, Inc.

FOTO’s ground breaking pay-for-performance model has been implemented by large payers in the U.S. Including Health Partners in Minnesota and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana.

About FOTO

Focus on Therapeutic Outcomes, Inc. (FOTO) has been continuously improving solutions to efficiently measure and reliably report patient functional outcomes for the physical rehabilitation industry for 26 years. FOTO’s web-based measurement solutions are used by clinicians to determine fair and accurate risk-adjusted predictions of the expected improvement in patients’ functional ability.

More than 21 million patient assessments have been compiled in the FOTO database – one of the largest in North America. Visit www.FOTOinc.com for more information.

Media Contact:

 Barbara Llarena

Rocket Science (for FOTO)

barbara@rocketscience.com

(415) 464-8110 x217

mobile: (510) 693-0933

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