medSage | TECHNOLOGIES

FTC Ruling on Pre-Recorded Calls

Recent announcements in the news have alluded to a new ruling published by the Federal Trade Commission regarding pre-recorded calls. The ruling states that these calls are being banned in the United States with only a few exceptions. If you are concerned that this might impact your patient management process, using medSage, the short answer to your question is - there is no concern at all.

Turns out that the rest of the industry was way behind medSage on this one. The FTC actually worked on this new regulation a number of years ago and, when we became aware of what they were doing, medSage worked directly with the FTC on the details. The end result is that healthcare applications of this technology are exempt from the regulation. The relevant excerpt from their publications reads as follows:

"Exempt health are-related prerecorded message calls that are subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) from the prohibition on telemarketing calls that deliver prerecorded messages"

To see the details of this publication, please click on this link:
http://www.ftc.gov/op/2008/08/tsr.shtm

Furthermore, the actual regulation is around 90 pages long and references medSage no less than 16 times as an example of a company using this technology for the greater good of the country.

The full document can be accessed at this link:
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2008/08/R411001tsrfrn.pdf

This was a big win for medSage and should be good for all of our customers in the long run because, while our calls continue to be allowed by this regulation, others are now prohibited, which should serve to reduce the noise level of these calls going to your patient's homes.

Accreditation

Many of the accreditation agencies have a requirement that an active patient follow-up program must be in place and utilized. medSage contacts the patients according to your clinical guidelines and obtains feedback on outcomes and clinical issues. The patients are contacted at the optimal time and any requiring personal follow-up are identified each day. If you so desire, you can enter your clinical notes in the medSage system and record the date you followed-up with the patient. If you desire to have the medSage system place another call to the patient before the next regularly scheduled call, you conveniently enter your desired date for the next call. Management reports are available that allow you to measure the clinical outcomes---by branch, by individual therapist, by physician, etc.—and make meaningful fact-based decisions. The voice recordings of all calls are maintained for your audit purposes in compliance with HIPAA requirements.

Demonstrate Clinical Outcomes and Create Marketing Differentiation

The medSage system generates a tremendous amount of information that allows you to provide consultative feedback to your referral sources and third party payers. If you can review all of a physician’s patients and show him that his patients using Product “X” are more compliant and less symptomatic, you have differentiated your business from the competition in a meaningful and valuable manner. You can also deliver printed reports to be included in the patients’ files for easy reference during their next office/lab visit. The fact that you can document self-reported compliance for a large group of patients sets yourself apart from the competition. You will be viewed more favorably by your referral sources if you physically demonstrate you are a professional, clinically-focused provider of healthcare services.

Asset Optimization

If your business is providing a healthcare service to individual patients, then the major asset of your business is not the depreciated equipment value listed on your balance sheet. Your major asset is the patients you serve and the potential revenue stream they represent for your business or practice. The medSage patient management system not only allows you to better manage the patient from a timely clinical intervention perspective, but it also maximizes the potential revenue generated by each patient in line with your established clinical guidelines. There are good, health-based reasons why equipment and supplies need to be replaced at scheduled intervals and the medSage system uses your clinical guidelines to automatically contact the patient at the optimal time to see if new supplies and/or equipment are needed. With the medSage system, you arrive in the morning and access a listing of patients that are in need of additional supplies as well as a listing of those who are in need of personal follow-up. We make the management of thousands of patients a walk in the park.