How patients can tell when a provider cares about their chronic condition

Healthcare landscape 2023 (Patients know what good care looks like)

Medical practices today are providing excellent health care to their patients under really challenging circumstances. It is harder and harder for practices sometimes to have sufficient staff, systems and support to do everything they want to do. Patients know what makes for great, caring health care. When they feel engaged, heard, encouraged and supported - they know their providers and the practice cares about them and their chronic condition. While engagement and support cannot always guarantee a perfect health outcome - though the data show that engagement, remote services and a broader care team often do yield improved health outcomes - these qualities let patients know their provider and practice truly care about them and their health. Unfortunately, today many patients feel that healthcare is broken - especially older patients who need more comprehensive and more frequent care, and remember a time when they could reach their providers and have their questions answered. For many practices - the practice, and the providers specifically, are under more and more pressure each day to do more with less. This makes it harder to provide comprehensive care to patients and to offer services that would enhance the care their patients receive. Read about healthcare burnout.

Increased engagement with patients leads to improved satisfaction and health outcomes 

Comprehensive chronic care management, remote patient monitoring and a range of (scalable) remote care management services help providers to track and engage with patients much more easily and frequently - improving patient engagement and follow-through - as well as satisfaction and health outcomes. 

Remote care management is a suite of programs that help medical practices add more patient care and engagement for their patients outside the walls of the doctor’s office. Remote care typically includes additional clinical staff assigned to each patient, who communicate with patients by phone to provide care, engagement and support in between office visits. These staff provide regular check-ins, help patients use remote monitoring devices that track patient vitals and support patients in managing their chronic health conditions. Remote care management services significantly improve patient engagement and outcomes with personalized, ongoing support for the most vulnerable patients. 

The overall benefit of remote care programs - by way of increased engagement and improved health outcomes - is improved patient satisfaction. With remote care programs, patients feel heard, encouraged and supported. Also, patients see the improvements in data, communication and connection. Remote care management programs allow a team of providers to update and educate patients about their health and their care, give patients a point person to communicate with in-between appointments that can support them and their primary doctor, help guide adherence and lets patients know their provider(s) care about them and their condition. The more touch-points and connections in managing a patient’s chronic condition(s), the better the outcomes and the more patients know their providers and the care team really care about them and their health. It’s not that without remote care management providers don’t care, but without an efficient and effective well run practice that’s focused on holistic, well managed comprehensive care - the best doctor out there doesn’t have the time to return every call or answer every question or monitor every piece of patient data. And patients see this and feel this. 

Remote care management establishes a structure for practices to scale, enhance and personalize the chronic care services and care management provided to patients. Patients and their families appreciate the continuity and connectivity remote care management adds to their experience. They know they are receiving more care, better care and often doing much better. Regular calls and check-ins, ongoing monitoring, easy patient data collection, seamless billing and insurance, a specific point-person (medical assistant) for all the check-ins and calls who personalizes the remote experience and regularly coordinates with the rest of the care team - are all parts of remote care management programs and how patients can tell their provider cares about their chronic condition. Read more about the benefits of remote care management 

‍

Key components of remote care management programs:

More frequent follow up and check ins with patients - monitoring, support, care management - and building relationships

More communication, dedicated team, relationship building and trust

Frequent, up to the minute communication with patient’s providers and entire care team 

‍

Key impacts of remote care management programs:

Increased patient engagement

Increased provider engagement

Increases patient satisfaction

Increased provider satisfaction

Increased/improved communication and relationship building

Increased efficiency of care and services 

Increased  effectiveness of care and services

Improved/increased health outcomes = happier and healthier patients

Read about Medsien solutions 

‍

Ways patients know the provider/the practice cares about them and their chronic condition

1. By adopting remote care management and offering remote care management programs
2. By expanding the range of programs, services and care settings
3. By engaging with patients about the program, and their specific data 

‍

Practices that decide to add remote care management signal caring about patient’s chronic conditions and patient engagement. These practices understand how important remote programs are to providing broader and better care, and improving access to the care team. 

By expanding services and the range of settings care can be provided in, you let patients and their families know you care about their health and well being. With the expansion to remote care management, patient care goes beyond the office walls. Patients get more care, in more settings - and can always reach someone with questions.  

Remote care management creates an opportunity for continuous care with more touchpoints:

‍

More people on your team  As care and range of settings and services is expanded, you increase the people and staff in your practice. With expanded staff and services, you have a bigger team caring for individuals.  This helps patients feel more secure and allows for relationship building - creating a larger care team for each person.  In addition to their doctor, there’s a dedicated point person (a Medsien care partner) for each patient which increases access to care, ease of reaching a caregiver, relationship building with the caregiver and an expanded, personalized care team. The MAs build close, trusting relationships with each patient and let them know they’re cared for by the MA, the doctor and the whole care team.

‍

More places to get care  Remote care management means there are more places and ways you get care. Patients now get home monitoring, phone management and ongoing communication with their Care Partner. Expanding the care patients receive beyond the office lets them know their practice cares about them.  

‍

More types of care and services Remote care management includes a range of programs and services patients can receive from home. With remote care expansion you can track/monitor more data and information points. There’s a variety of remote monitoring solutions and programs under this umbrella. When a practice chooses to implement these programs, they’re letting you know that their practice takes care management and management of chronic conditions seriously. Practices invest in these programs to invest in their patients. Remote care management increases patient health outcomes, patient satisfaction and engagement.  The impact is very positive for practices and care teams as well. 

‍

By providers engaging, inquiring and following up with patients about their specific remote data and measures at in person appointments, patients know their effort and time using remote care management services is worth it and that the services and communication are well coordinated across remote and in office providers. Read about the long-term success of these programs.

‍

How patients “know” their provider cares about their chronic condition

Feel heard and listened to

Feel understood

Know their care team thinks about their care and is concerned

Feel like the care team is a partner /is on their side

Feel encouraged 

Feel motivated and supported in taking the steps to enhance their care/ guide the use of remote services

Build a relationship / When the care feels personal

‍

Beyond the office walls

Providers want the patient to know they care.  By introducing a program, the practice and provider introduce an opportunity to use remote care management programs that significantly improve patient outreach, communication and health outcomes. Providers that choose to use these programs demonstrate to patients not only the use of the programs and increased services and touch points, but also that by integrating remote care management programs into the practice, they care about the patient’s health and experience. By working to expand patient care beyond the walls of the office, providers show they want a broader, more accessible healthcare experience for their patients. 

Providing continuous care with more touch points (frequency and settings) - makes for better, more engaged, caring care. This is good for the practice and provider, as well as the patient. Expanding to include remote care, expanding care beyond the office wall and providing better, broader, more engaged care show not only that the provider and practice care about their patients, but it ultimately makes your practice far more competitive because of improved efficiency, effectiveness of care and patient satisfaction. Practices that add the capacity to provide continuous care to patients - at home, remotely and more frequently - while expanding the very coordinated care team and care processes - have a competitive advantage. Patients in general - but in particular, patients with chronic conditions and even more so - older patients with chronic conditions - typically are not feeling that their medical practices are providing better care or more care or even being able to show they care. Adding remote care management programs to your practice allows a distinct competitive advantage by being available, reachable, expanding the way and places patients get care and showing patients your practice cares about them and their chronic conditions.

‍

It’s not neutral - Provider engagement fuels patients engagement

Remote care management helps providers really engage with patients and provider engagement drives patient engagement. When patients do meet with their doctor - and have care” inside the office walls” -  it’s important that their physician is engaged and on board with the remote care efforts. If a patient is enrolled in remote care services, and tracking and submitting their data, they need to know that their doctor is interested and monitoring this. For example, if they show up for their in person appointment, and the doctor is not aware of the data the patient has entered and steps they’ve been taking - or hasn’t seen it, doesn’t ask about it, is not monitoring it as well - the patient will lose all motivation and satisfaction that their whole team is paying attention. The provider must be on board and engaged with the remote care happening outside the office walls - and the patient’s motivation, engagement, actions, data and health changes - when they see patients for in-person, in-office visits. This is key for remote care management to work (and not seem gimmicky), and for patients to know their provider really cares about them. The negative impacts of no engagement are really, really negative for patients, and for a practice - and can negate the benefits of implementing remote care management programs. But the positive effects of provider engagement yield extremely positive results. There’s no neutral - or just fine - impact of having or not having robust, care management programs fully integrated into your practice and the care you provide. The impact for patients is significant - either really bad and frustrating, or really, outcomes changing good. 

It’s important to note that a well designed remote care management program will not make this feel like more work for the provider. Because the remote care and initial engagement is being done by remote medical assistants provided by your remote care management partner - so no staffing burden on your practice -  and by patients entering their own data - and because all notes and data are recorded and automatically entered into the electronic health record, there is virtually no additional work for the physician other than reviewing the patient’s electronic health record during the appointment. Data is fed and highlighted into the record so knowing to look and mention it is easy - and goes a long way to making patients feel supported and valued. Remote care management is designed to help make enhancements in patient care less work and much easier for providers and practices - not harder. 

Medsien remote care management makes this easy for providers and removes a lot of the burden - adding no work, only benefit for providers.  Read more about patient engagement. 

Reimagining remote care management 

Comprehensive, scalable remote care management programs benefit patients and practices through software structure, staffing and processes - increasing the volume of patients and services rendered, as well as quality, efficiency and effectiveness of the care. It is very difficult and quite expensive for a practice to do this on their own. Medsien’s highly specialized software, staffing and adaptability help practices bring all the benefits of remote care management reasonably, easily and quickly.  Practices choosing to engage in remote care management services can show patients and their families how much they care by setting up these kinds of programs. Learn more about reimagining remote care management here.