WHO – Wisconsin Homecare Organization

Telemonitoring in Medicaid Home Health

September 2008

Telemonitoring in home care achieves a great number of crucial Medicaid goals: reduced costs; more frequent care; greater access to care; improved patient outcomes; increased patient compliance; a greater level patient-managed care; and higher rates of patient satisfaction. As Wisconsin moves more Medicaid patients from institutional care to home care and encourages self-directed care, telemonitoring becomes ever more imperative for patients, providers and the Medicaid program’s goals and budget.

Trends in society – an aging population, the increase in chronic diseases, a long-term nursing shortage, and the desire by seniors to live independently in their homes – all point to the need for better solutions to help the chronically ill and elderly enjoy a higher quality of life at home, with the support of easy-to-use technology that connects patients with their care providers.

Wisconsin Medicaid does not reimburse home health care providers for telemonitoring – a fact as unconscionable as it is incomprehensible. For the sake of its Medicaid population and its Medicaid budget, Wisconsin must make telemonitoring a reimbursable service in home care, thereby making its use fiscally sound for providers. Wisconsin cannot afford not to.

Telemonitoring improves home health care

• A two-year study by Fazzi Associates, Philips Home Healthcare Solutions and the National Association for Home Care demonstrated the central importance of integrating technology into clinical practice to ensure both quality care and operational efficiency, and in combining disease management and telemonitoringto achieve optimal clinical outcomes and financial performance.1
• A New York study of home care patients with congestive heart failure using telemonitoring achieved a 100% reduction in hospitalizations.2
• Patients using telemonitoring in home care achieve a greater rate of compliance and reported feeling a sense of “caring” by home care providers. 3

Update January 2010: State by state comparison

At least 27 states have included coverage for some telehealth services; Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York and Utah have included reimbursement.

Subsidization of Medicare creates Wisconsin home care crisis

• Wisconsin has more than 5,000 individual home care providers.4
• Wisconsin has more than 70,000 homebound patients.4

1 Philips National Study on the Future of Technology & Telehealth in Home Care, April 2008 www.philips.com/homecarestudy

2 The American Journal of Managed Care 3(12) 1831-1939. Rogleir, JL, et al. “Disease management interventions to improve outcomes in congestive heart failure.”

3 Continuing Care May, 1998: 36-41, D’Andrea, B, et al. “Transforming high tech into high touch cardiac care.

4 Wisconsin Home Health Agencies and Patients http://www.dhfs.state.wi.us/provider/pdf/05hh&p.pdf