The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are making it more lucrative than ever for senior care facilities to toe-test telehealth – and they’re no longer catering to just rural facilities.

FCC Funding

 To date, the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program has approved funding for 238 health care providers: 

• Urban and rural
• In 41 states plus Washington, D.C.
• Totaling $84.96 million (of $200 million available)

This means there’s 58 percent – $115 million – in funding still on the table.

Criteria to award funding

• Conditions to be treated
• Goals and objectives for use
• Timeline for service/device deployment
• Factors/metrics used to measure impact
• Geographic area/ population served (pre-existing strain, provider shortages, rural closures, limited broadband and/or internet adoption)
• Ability to target high-risk and vulnerable patients

Resources

• FCC COVID-19 Telehealth Program
• FCC COVID-19 Telehealth Program FAQs
• FCC COVID-19 Telehealth Program Recipients

CMS Changes

Meanwhile, effective March 6 and for the duration of the COVID-19 emergency, Medicare is willing to pay clinicians the same fee for services rendered via telehealth to any beneficiary anywhere (e.g., treat-in-place). Previously it was limited to rural SNFs and/or required patients to come to a telehealth facility for treatment. Now various clinicians, including specialists, can treat your patients right in your facility and all skilled nursing facilities are eligible.

And, don't be put off by the 'temporary' implication of this change. Word has it, CMS may make temporary telehealth provisions permanent, based on positive results.

Resources

• CMS List of Telehealth Services
• CMS Medicare Telemedicine Provider Fact Sheet
• Verma favors keeping expanded telemedicine access after pandemic

Conclusion

With telemedicine trending as it is, make sure you take time to understand the funding available and get a slice of that pie. What's more, this may be the fix you've been looking for to fill staffing gaps. Virtual treatment grants you access to remote clinicians anywhere, not just locally.

Want more detail on these 'must-haves'?
CLICK BELOW to reserve a spot with experts from Mix Solutions on June 4.

To comment on this blog, complete the form below.

The Hartman Value Profile (HVP) has been used in major U.S. healthcare settings since the 1970s for recruitment, placement, development, and team-building – and, with exceptional results. Its success is based on its mathematical algorithms and axiology – or, the science of values.

Though we don’t like to believe it, we are all creatures of patterns. Through his studies, logician and philosopher Robert Hartman found that we run through these patterns each day to make decisions. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, Hartman created a proprietary database of leadership profiles.

Today, these profiles are identified using the Judgement Index™, developed by Hartman’s protégé, Steve Byrum and his associates. This assessment can reveal a wide range of critically important business attitudes and behaviors, including employees’:

• Level of engagement
• Level of focus
• Ability to follow directions
• Trainability
• Problem-solving aptitude
• Energy for solving problems
• Interpersonal skills
• Work-life balance

Unlike the many personality tests (e.g., Myers-Briggs), a Hartman Value Profile assessment reveals underlying values that drive behavior and why these behaviors result in success (or failure) across leaders and teams. The assessment can also be repeated over time to measure a worker’s professional growth and progress. Personalities don’t change, but values often do.

Successful companies and HR consultants continue to use the HVP today because of its unique ability to foster business continuity, executive development, and succession planning. In other words, it helps you hire – and RETAIN – those employees that are likely to thrive in your organization.

LEARN MORE! Join HPV/Judgement Index™ expert Steve Byrum for our May 28 webinar, When Staffing Takes A 180, Assess Don’t Guess. Attendees get a FREE assessment, along with a follow-up session to explain results.

Prime Care Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of flexible hosting, managed services and cloud software for healthcare organizations, today announced it has joined the Kronos Workforce Dimensions Technology Partner Network – a fast-growing ecosystem of organizations utilizing the revolutionary Workforce Dimensions solution and intelligent Kronos D5 platform.

As part of this network, Prime Care Technologies will deliver its securely hosted archiving solution, primeARCHIVE, to Kronos customers migrating to Workforce Dimensions, enabling them to quickly back up and query historical workforce data. As a long-time Kronos partner and integrator, Prime Care Technologies understands the criticality of workforce data storage needed to easily analyze, report, and comply with unique workforce rules.

“We are delighted to extend our relationship with Kronos for its workforce management and human capital management (HCM) customers,” said Jim Hoey, president and CEO, Prime Care Technologies. “As a 13+ year Kronos reseller and certified implementation and support partner, we know the importance of securing historical data and having long-term access to reporting. We are confident our data center will provide a highly secure environment to store all historical data for Kronos Workforce Dimensions customers.”

Workforce Dimensions from Kronos is a next-generation workforce management solution. Cloud-native, mobile-native, and powered by artificial intelligence, Workforce Dimensions delivers real-time analytics to drive in-the-moment decisions, unburdening managers from time-consuming, low-value tasks and empowering employees with an engaging experience. The open application programming interface (API) framework of Kronos D5 makes it quick and simple for customers to extend the value of their workforce management and HCM investment with innovative and tightly integrated partner applications that drive user adoption.

“Workforce Dimensions is built on a completely open and extensible platform, enabling innovative integrations with partners, including Prime Care Technologies, that empower employees in ways that simply are not possible with legacy solutions,” said Mike May, senior director, Workforce Dimensions Technology Partner Network, Kronos. “By simplifying the process of migrating data from a legacy solution to Workforce Dimensions, healthcare organizations will accelerate their deployment even faster to deliver a next-generation employee experience sooner.”