The cost of healthcare in the United States has been exploding at an unsustainable rate for the past 20 years. Today, this soaring expense threatens our entire economy. Our old system of hospital based healthcare delivery is both antiquated and inefficient. The challenge is to overhaul healthcare in a way that maintains quality while cutting costs.
Ben Franklin had it right when he said “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. In no arena is that more true than in healthcare. We have long known that it is much more cost effective to treat high blood pressure than to treat a stroke. It is better to control diabetes than to keep the patient alive with dialysis and better to control cholesterol than to treat a heart attack. Historically, medicine in the US has been reactive rather than proactive and that is a major cause of wasted healthcare dollars.
The healthcare of the future will focus on prevention and early detection in an effort to prevent the excessive cost and lost production associated with bad outcome events.
Early detection is associated with much improved outcomes. Future healthcare will focus on screening for colon cancer, prostate cancer, alcohol and drug abuse and for other commonly undiagnosed diseases like diabetes and hypertension. Insurance companies will pay incentives to have periodic physical exams and screening tests in an effort to detects problems in early stages when a better prognosis are likely or preventing the problem altogether. Insurance companies have found this approach to be more cost effective and better for the patient.
As medical technology has advanced, so too has medical information. Expensive diagnostic tests are not useful if the results are not readily available to the doctors making clinical decision in a timely manner. There is a delicate balance between making information available and maintaining patient confidentiality. The electronic health record of the future will allow patients to have access to there own health record so they can share it with their multiple healthcare providers including specialists, and emergency doctors. Patients will be encouraged to be more actively involved with their own care. Patients along with their primary care physician will become custodians of their health record. Patient will be given a written discharge summary after each office visit and a print out of educational information that explains your diagnosis, or goes over recommended therapies including diet and physical therapy.
Our clinic is proud to announce the implementation of two technologies that we believe will help improve communication with our patients and to improve their overall health; the Patient Portal, and the Healow app. If you don’t want to be burdened with all the paper work of keeping up with your own chart you will now be able to check all your lab results from a home computer or with your smart phone. Patient Portal provides 24/7 access to your specific patient chart. You can browse your office visits, pay balances, check lab results, and see what health screening tests are recommended for you. This is a free service provided to you by the Boyett Health Services office. How can this benefit you personally? For example, you may be on vacation in Florida when, suddenly, you develop chest pain and have to be hospitalized out of state. With the patient portal access, any hospital can pull up all your previous lab work and studies (with your permission) so that expensive tests don’t have to be repeated. This technology has also moved to your cell phone as a down load through the Android and Apple App Store. The app is called Healow. Healow allows you to put several different office’s ‘patient portals’ all in one place. Again you have 24/7 access to your chart, ability to text the office directly, and have prescription reminders set to alert you of the next scheduled time to take your medication!
In addition to all of this, we have recently installed an advanced touch screen check-in system in our office! It is called the Ledabour Eclinicals Kiosk. You can now sign in, update your information, scan your driver’s license and insurance card, and pay for your visit in one quick and easy encounter with our kiosk. Once your insurance card has been scanned, it can also verify your insurance and calculate your co-pay! This eliminates all of that excessive paperwork, and puts all of this new information directly into your account. We are very excited to add this system to the many services we provide to our patients here at Boyett Health Services. Come see for yourself. We look forward to seeing you!
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