Even Asymptomatic People Carry the Coronavirus in High Amounts
Nytimes.com – Of all the coronavirus’s qualities, perhaps the most surprising has been that seemingly healthy people can spread it to others. This trait has made the virus difficult to contain, and continues to challenge efforts to identify and isolate infected people.
To view the original article in its entirety, click here.
How Teladoc’s blockbuster deal could impact the entire virtual care landscape
Fiercehealthcare.com – Teladoc’s move to acquire Livongo is shaking up the health technology market.
Teladoc plans to pay $18.5 billion in cash and stock for Livongo, which provides diabetes monitoring and remote monitoring.
To view the original article in its entirety, click here.
Atlas Health Named Finalist in Fierce Innovation Awards – Healthcare Edition 2020, Demonstrates Reimbursement Relief for Health Systems & Financial Aid for Patients
Atlas Health (Atlas), the leader in philanthropic reimbursement that empowers health systems with an end-to-end solution for enrolling patients in medical financial aid programs, announces that it has been selected as a finalist in the Fierce Innovation Awards – Healthcare Edition 2020. The peer-reviewed awards program from the publisher of Fierce Healthcare andproduced by Questex highlights companies that demonstrated innovative solutions with the greatest potential to save money, engage patients or revolutionize the industry over the past 12 months. Atlas was recognized as a finalist in the category of Financial/Operational Solutions.
“We are truly honored to be a finalist for this award and gratified to be helping health systems recover lost revenues while delivering cost savings for patients — especially during these financially stressful times,” says Ethan Davidoff, CEO and founder, Atlas. “Our model ensures that no reimbursement opportunity is missed and that patients have greater access to life-saving treatments.”
Atlas was selected as a finalist for its innovative, industry leading product, Atlas Navigator. Atlas Navigator is a proprietary technology and AI-powered service partnership platform that helps providers capture reimbursements from financial aid programs to help patients access and afford care.
The awards program’s applications were reviewed by an exclusive panel of executives from major healthcare companies, including Accenture Health, Aspirus, Inc., Aveus, a Division of Medecision, Cook Children’s Health Care System, Duncan Regional Hospital, Evolution Road, GNS Healthcare, Hackensack Meridian Health, HMS, Proliance Surgeons and the Health Care Consumers’ Manifesto. All applications were evaluated based on: effectiveness, technical innovation, competitive advantage, financial impact and true innovation. A full list of judges can be found at https://fiercehealthcareawards.secure-platform.com/a/page/judges.
Winners will be announced in the 2020 Innovation Report on Monday, September 14.
To learn more about Atlas, visit https://atlas.health/.
About Atlas Health
Atlas Health, the leader in philanthropic reimbursement, is improving and saving lives by empowering providers with an end-to-end solution for matching and enrolling patients in medical financial aid programs through its proprietary technology and AI-powered platform, Atlas Navigator. Patients receive the care they need and providers secure reimbursement for care delivered. Find out how no patient is left behind at https://atlas.health/.
Optime Care Highlights Role of Telehealth to Maximize Therapeutic Opportunities for Patients with Orphan and Ultra-Orphan Disorders During COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond
Optime Care, a nationally recognized pharmacy, distribution and patient management organization maximizing therapeutic opportunities for the treatment of orphan and rare disorders, points to the value of telehealth for addressing the unique healthcare coordination needs of patients with rare and orphan diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic. Optime Care’s patient-first approach features a telehealth option that is fully integrated for pharmacies to provide care coordination for patients, customized care plans based on conversations with each patient, medication counseling, education on disease states and expectations for each drug. In partnership with Optime Care, specialty drug manufacturers better serve patients, caregivers, providers and payers to help them overcome key challenges around the complexity of these conditions.
A single rare, or orphan, disease affects fewer than 200,000 Americans, according to the Orphan Drug Act of 1983, but there are nearly 7,000 rare diseases affecting 30 million Americans, including Huntington disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig disease), Tourette syndrome and muscular dystrophy. Optime Care focuses solely on patient populations of <10,000.
“When specialty drug manufacturers choose to partner with Optime Care’s patient-first model, they get the benefit of a proactive, process-driven telehealth program which mitigates the transmission of infection, such as coronavirus, for these vulnerable individuals,” says Donovan Quill, president and CEO, Optime Care, “During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients with rare and orphan diseases face heightened stress because many of them are immunosuppressed, conscious of infection and wary of getting sicker than they already are. As a result, they are hypersensitive to viral threats, more isolated than ever and struggling to self-protect.”
Optime Care’s customized telehealth option enables essential discussions for understanding patient needs, a drug’s impact on overall health, assessing the number of touch points required each month, follow-up and staying on top of side effects.
“Industry experts state that orphan drugs will be a major trend to watch in 2020, accounting for almost 40% of Food and Drug Administration approvals this year,” adds Donovan. “But in this global shut down environment, many orphan drug manufacturers now face financial challenges and are unable to change their model overnight to accommodate the new healthcare challenges. Serving as a single source partner, our approach benefits drug manufacturers by bringing continuity of care that is critically missing from the legacy care model. The net result is that patients have a better experience — a critical component of a product’s value— and gain stronger compliance outcomes.”
Listen to the “Rare Voices” podcast series here.
About Optime Care
Optime Care, Inc. is a nationally recognized pharmacy, distribution and patient management organization offering a suite of comprehensive services tailored to maximize the therapeutic opportunities for the treatment of orphan and rare disorders. Our management team has previously partnered in the launch of more than 25 orphan products and consistently implemented the best brand program for the community. Our experience with small patient populations makes us uniquely qualified to help every stakeholder group impacted by these disorders. Optime Care has dual-accreditation from the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC) for compliance with specialty pharmacy and the Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) for specialty pharmacy services that demonstrate a commitment to providing quality care and services to consumers. https://www.optimecare.com/
Atlas Health Introduces Navigator 4.0: AI-Powered Matching & Enrollment Ensures Optimal Philanthropic Reimbursement, Including COVID-19 Aid Programs
Atlas Health (Atlas), the leader in philanthropic reimbursement that empowers health systems with an end-to-end solution for enrolling patients in medical financial aid programs, announces an upgrade to Atlas Navigator. Atlas Navigator is a proprietary AI-powered financial counseling service that finds non-traditional coverage options to deliver maximum reimbursement. The upgrade includes new features to ensure that no reimbursement opportunity is missed, display proprietary confidence scores and reimbursement estimates for enhanced forecasting and resourcing, and provide COVID-19-specific programs.
Sean Krausz, senior manager, Revenue, Risk & Audit, Palomar Health, says, “With skyrocketing unemployment and millions of people losing health insurance, this upgrade could not have come at a better time. It brings financial relief to patients struggling with coverage and extraordinary out-of-pocket expenses, helping health systems like ours to withstand the burdens and material losses associated with COVID-19.”
Atlas Navigator now utilizes smart web crawler technology to sweep all medical financial aid programs every few minutes, triggering real-time email alerts when a program becomes open for enrollment. The email alert includes links directly to eligible patients in the Atlas system with pre-filled applications ready to submit in a few clicks. With some programs rapidly opening and closing within hours, these real-time alerts give financial counselors the opportunity to enroll patients in programs they might otherwise miss.
Because each reimbursement opportunity is associated with a date by which a patient must be enrolled, a claim must be dropped, or a date by which a medication must be ordered, Atlas Navigator maps each program coverage window to each matched account. When financial counselors adhere to those dates and deadlines, they can work in order of chronological priority to convert charity care or bad debt to revenue for the healthcare system. This is a critical imperative to reduce uncompensated care and improve free cash flow.
Using constantly changing programs and patient data points, historical enrollment and reimbursement outcomes and a proprietary machine learning algorithm, Atlas Navigator now surfaces estimated reimbursements and enrollment confidence scores for each individual account. Access to these scores and estimates allows health system administrators to forecast reimbursement opportunities and prioritize worklists in order to allocate appropriate resources for philanthropic reimbursement projects.
“Our upgraded platform reflects our passion to improve cost savings for patients and health systems with AI-first technology that reduces the cost of enrolling any patient in any program,” says Ethan Davidoff, CEO and founder, Atlas. “We share those savings with our health system partners to help them better support the communities they serve. For patients, this translates into improved access to lifesaving treatments they may have otherwise not been able to afford.”
By capturing the highest number of aid programs available and wrapping this availability with sophisticated matching, easy integration, comprehensive workflow and quality reporting, Atlas offers health systems the benefits of increased revenue, cost-savings, reduction in patient A/R days, lower operating overhead, improved workflow automation, enhanced financial navigator and patient experience and higher levels of compliance.
About Atlas Health
Atlas Health, the leader in philanthropic reimbursement, is improving and saving lives by empowering providers with an end-to-end solution for matching and enrolling patients in medical financial aid programs through its proprietary technology and AI-powered service partnership platform, Atlas Navigator. Patients receive the care they need and providers secure reimbursement for care delivered. Find out how no patient is left behind at https://atlas.health/.