Sleep providers are in a pretty interesting place. Competitive bidding has hurt many, but private payor still serves as a lynchpin revenue source. That said, sleep providers must bolster what businesses they have and protect their referral relationships. Ensuring great service and patient outcomes through communication is a great way for sleep providers to build that better business.
“It’s really about compliance and long-term engagement with that patient, so you keep that patient as customer for a much longer period of time,” says Scott Frenz, director of services field marketing at Philips Respironics. “Over time, the homecare providers have managed it well, but they’re recognizing that they need to manage it even more effectively in light of reimbursement challenges and other challenging conditions in the marketplace.”
Ongoing communication between patients and suppliers, and increased patient engagement, can also lead to increased resupply revenues.
“Historically, there have been few opportunities for sleep patients to be actively engaged in therapy. Those who were engaged were often coached using costly manual outreach,” added Rob Levings, vice president of business development at U-Sleep. “CPAP therapy only works if it is used consistently, so increasing patient compliance is key to improving health and preventing the dangerous risks of untreated sleep apnea,”
And from a clinical perspective, increased communication with patients can help them become compliant faster, and stay compliant longer.
“Providing timely feedback on therapy allows patients to change the way they use their device, or encourages them to engage with their sleep physician to get assistance,” says Levings.
For patients, communication channels are established during their initial visit to the HME. By educating patients on what to expect during therapy and what to do should they encounter issues, a sleep provider can set the precedent that they are there to provide solutions.
There are various ways that providers can improve communication.
“It’s probably more and more becoming less about direct interaction, although that’s critical,” explains Frenz. “What we’ve seen in our day-to-day interactions with our homecare provider partners is that they’re trying to do more with less, so if they can have some tools that can help them do that, they’re going to be better off.”
Ways to improve communications with patients involve leveraging the tools that allow them to optimize a combination of direct patient contact, automated calling and web-based, or app-based patient engagement tools. For example, Philips’ medSage and EncoreResupply services offer automated calling or interactive voice response (IVR) systems that allow providers to regularly contact their patients.
“If the homecare provider chooses live calling we can offer that service as well, but we’ve found it to be very effective with the automated calling to be reminding their patients of their potential to resupply, whether it be a mask, a cushion, accessories, filters, humidifiers, that they are eligible to resupply through their payor guidelines,” Frenz says.
As for the referral partner communication, it’s critical for sleep care professionals to have access to the information that is important to them, so it’s really all about integrating the tools and systems into a homecare provider’s operations and linking them to the referral partner’s systems. One way to do this is through the use of cloud-based systems.
“By using cloud-based systems, sleep professionals now can access patient data really at any time or anywhere,” Frenz explains. “So sleep professionals are no longer tied to using a specific computer within their office to download sleep data, review patient sleep therapy information.”
The old way to do it was that a patient had an SD card in their device. The patient would take the card either back to their homecare provider or directly to their sleep doctor. Then someone in the office would download and review the information, but it may not happen immediately.
“It only happened at certain intervals when the patient could get into the office that type of thing. Now sleep professionals and homecare providers have instant access to that patient data,” Frenz says. “And along with cloud-based systems, we can now get sleep therapy data in many different methods through using cellular modems and Bluetooth. So by adding multiple ways of getting sleep data the professionals, homecare providers and sleep professionals are likely to have patients’ data long before they come in.”
By using technology to report back to the referral partners, the docs and sleep labs can monitor how the patients are doing and tweak the PAP therapy as needed. Newer technologies like the U-Sleep CPAP compliance solution connects providers with patients, clinicians and referral partners and automates the outreach and coaching process.
“For example, U-Sleep can send an email to patients advising them to contact their provider if a mask leak exceeds a certain value, or if their AHI increases,” Levings says.
Other technologies include Philips’ EncoreAnywhere compliance management platform, a web-based tool that lets providers and referral partners actively access patient compliance data. An additional tool, SleepMapper, is an integrated solution that allows the patient to see aspects of their compliance.
“It’s not the same reports that a clinician or a homecare provider would see,” Frenz says. “It’s really developed around allowing the patient to have access to their therapy data. That really helps them be more motivated to use their devices. That allows them to troubleshoot their devices and masks if they’re having leaks or challenges sleeping through the night, and then ultimately giving them feedback on their therapy.”
Several studies have been conducted showing the value of patient engagement and its impact on improving outcomes and compliance.
“What we found is by improving communications via the CPAP, the EncoreAnywhere software system and the use of wireless modems to get that data regularly uploaded into the web-based database, the provider the patient and the doctor are able to see an 8 percent increase in patient compliance, over patients not using the EncoreAnywhere platform and the modem system,” says Frenz, citing a whitepaper from Philips.
For providers, the trick is to improve compliance in a cost-effective manner. This is where technology can help.
“Long-term communication facilitated by new technology, can increase resupply revenue as patients are advised of their eligibility, or need for new masks, tubing and devices,” Levings says.
