Telemedicine Cutting Costs of Health-care While Improving Outcomes

by LAS

The innovation of offering telemedicine – where patients contact their doctors by phone, email or online – is not only helping shave the cost of health-care but is also helping patients manage ongoing health problems more successfully.

Employers and insurers are both hopeful that telemedicine will potentially keep more patients out of the emergency rooms who do not need that level of care.

Often patients go the ER because they have no other options, either they have no insurance or no local urgent care clinic or the clinic is closed at that hour that they need it. So telemedicine is really offering a medical advice service that is on-call 24/7.

It may shock you to learn that in 2009, there were 136 MILLION emergency room visits, and that at least 20 percent (and by some measures as much as three-quarters of them) could have been properly treated either in a clinic by their primary-care provider or in an urgent care facility. Given that the average ER visit costs at least $1,400, channeling those visits into other options has a high priority.

The good news is that telemedicine is getting rave reviews from users, never mind the insurers. Upwards of 90 percent of patients who used telemedicine gave it a positive approval rating.

One such telemedicine provider is STAT Doctors in the Scottsdale, Arizona area. Scottsdale began offering the telemedicine option and began seeing benefits: lower costs of course, but also decreased absenteeism.

Many employers offer call-a-nurse services as part of their healthcare plan. If more employees took advantage of that service, maybe a true form of telemedicine with access to physician consultations would be deployed.

Looking ahead, applications designed for wireless home-based health care services and advice is expected to grow from a $304 million-dollar market to $4.4 BILLION by the end of this year. 

Smokers Cost Employers $12K More Per Year (each) than Non-smokers

by LAS

Studies show that each smoker costs a company an average of $12,000 a year more than non-smokers. Inspired by a California study that showed every dollar spent by the state on smoking-cessation programs saved $18 in health care costs – more employers are moving to start smoke-free policies or tobacco-cessation programs in the workplace.

Employers do have to skirt some smokers' rights laws in a few states to avoid discrimination lawsuits if they become too invasive.

In just 29 states, the employers are limited to prohibiting smoking in the workplace, and states may prohibit smoking in public places. They have what is called “lifestyle laws” that protect workers. Employers may not take smoking into account regarding promotions, hiring or firing.

These laws, one must admit, are pretty toothless. It is difficult to prove that an employer violated the law because they know enough to provide some other, innocuous reason for not hiring or promoting someone.

Some of the state laws are even weaker. The Virginia law apply only to state employees. Three states – Minnesota, Illinois, and Montana – protect smokers rights but allow employers to charge higher premiums for the smokers. Three states – Tennessee, Louisiana, and Colorado – apply their protection of smokers to future hires, not current employees (when the law was passed).

Smokers who try to quit generally have to make many attempts before it sticks. Statistically, it takes seven attempts for a smoker to quit smoking. So keeping trying, you never know what approach will finally help you reach your goal.