The COVID-19 healthcare crisis is hobbling the provision of healthcare. Many state and local governments are joining federal agencies recommending against, if not outright forbidding, visits to hospitals and doctors’ offices for non-critical care. DME suppliers are already seeing declines in new orders. Hospitals are furloughing thousands of employees nationwide, and many doctors’ offices are closed altogether until the COVID-19 crisis subsides. While part of the US healthcare system is overheating, the majority managing chronic and long-term care sits idle.
In spite of all that …
DME suppliers that track their sales pipeline carefully may be able to mitigate their own losses by offering insightful assistance to their patients and referral sources. Suppliers can send work to referral sources.
For example, DME sales orders that are stopped or holding for compliance reasons often require a doctor visit to resume billing. Suppliers can use their sales order pipeline analysis to query these patients and coordinate telehealth visits with the physician and the patient. Physicians can bill for a regular visit, and patients get the care they need.
Surprisingly, many physicians don’t know that, not only can they bill the same amount for a telehealth encounter as a commensurate office visit, they can now use freely-available applications like Apple’s Facetime, Microsoft’s Skype, Google Hangouts, and Zoom to conduct telehealth with both practitioner and patient in the safety and comfort of their respective homes.
Building a Sales Order Pipeline Analysis (SOPA)
At MiraVista, we built an Excel model that allows us to measure new sales orders by week and stratify the weekly data into comparable groups:
In spite of all that …
DME suppliers that track their sales pipeline carefully may be able to mitigate their own losses by offering insightful assistance to their patients and referral sources. Suppliers can send work to referral sources.
For example, DME sales orders that are stopped or holding for compliance reasons often require a doctor visit to resume billing. Suppliers can use their sales order pipeline analysis to query these patients and coordinate telehealth visits with the physician and the patient. Physicians can bill for a regular visit, and patients get the care they need.
Surprisingly, many physicians don’t know that, not only can they bill the same amount for a telehealth encounter as a commensurate office visit, they can now use freely-available applications like Apple’s Facetime, Microsoft’s Skype, Google Hangouts, and Zoom to conduct telehealth with both practitioner and patient in the safety and comfort of their respective homes.
Building a Sales Order Pipeline Analysis (SOPA)
At MiraVista, we built an Excel model that allows us to measure new sales orders by week and stratify the weekly data into comparable groups:
- The quarter ended December 31, 2019, is our baseline, or normal volume, measurement.
- 2020 calendar weeks 1-11 are the normal-to-COVID-19 transitional period.
From there, we see trends specific to key referral sources:
We also see orders that are stopped or held due to compliance, opportunities to collaborate with referring physicians to generate telehealth visits:
Collaborate With Referring Physicians
DME suppliers can initiate a collaborative dialogue in two ways:
Many patients worry about access to care during this time; the need is significant even if it is not immediately life-threatening. Consider communicating telehealth options to them as well through available communication modes:
DME suppliers can initiate a collaborative dialogue in two ways:
- Provide a list of patients that need telehealth visits for continued DME compliance.
- Educate physicians on telehealth options during the outbreak.
- Press Release: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/president-trump-expands-telehealth-benefits-medicare-beneficiaries-during-covid-19-outbreak
- FAQ: https://edit.cms.gov/files/document/medicare-telehealth-frequently-asked-questions-faqs-31720.pdf
- Fact Sheet: https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/medicare-telemedicine-health-care-provider-fact-sheet
- Approved Services for Telehealth: https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/Medicare-General-Information/Telehealth/Telehealth-Codes
- The Office of Civil Rights HIPAA Waivers for Telehealth: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/special-topics/emergency-preparedness/notification-enforcement-discretion-telehealth/index.html
Many patients worry about access to care during this time; the need is significant even if it is not immediately life-threatening. Consider communicating telehealth options to them as well through available communication modes:
- Patient billing statement inserts.
- Telehealth educational mailings for talking to physicians about telehealth options during COVID-19.
- Temporary call centers staffed by sidelined sales and marketing employees.
- Identify physicians with declining referral orders related to COVID-19 lockdowns,
- Query lists of those practitioner’s patients in need of a telehealth visit to satisfy compliance and resume DME billing,
- Educate physicians on the revised telehealth options, and
- Collaborate with referral sources to salvage both businesses during a very difficult time.
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