Christine Jordan Sexton
Always the optimist, state Sen. Aaron Bean predicted at the Florida Health Care Summit in Orlando on Monday that 2015 is the year for a telehealth bill in the Florida Legislature.
Bean moderated a trio of experts on medicine and technology who chimed in on what the state should do to ensure that Florida is not behind the times and is keeping abreast when it comes to the latest technology and how it should be folded into health care.
“I’m not going to say Florida is behind the times but I just went to my health care provider a couple of weeks ago and they suggested I do some blood letting and they pulled out some leeches and I felt much better,” Bean said, joking. “But there (are) things we are doing in Florida that are kind of behind the times. But this is our year.”
Bean, a Republican from Jacksonville, said the current iteration of the telehealth bill — SB478 — is three pages and silent on the controversial issue of reimbursement for physicians. The Florida Medical Association has made “parity” or equal reimbursement for care whether the visit is face to face or made possible through technology.
Last year, the proposal that got bogged down, was 26 pages and included reimbursement for Medicaid.
“We really let the free market define what they want to do,” Bean said of this year’s bill.
The conference is being hosted by the Foundation of Associated Industries of Florida. The panel of experts — Michael V. Bess M.D. and national medical director of telehealth for Optum; Renee Finley, Florida Blue; and Andrew Wagner M.D., chief operating officer of StatDocs — all agreed that the ideal legislation would not be overly regulatory and that any rules are flexible enough to be effective as technology changes over time.
The audience saw a presentation from Stat Doctors on a device that aimed at keeping people out of the emergency room by allowing them to download a mobile application and answer a series of questions. The device is HIPAA compliant and patients can see their deductibles or co-payments.
After completing the questions — which included listing symptoms they were experiencing, medications they were taking and their pharmacy of choice — the patient would hear back from an emergency room doctor. “We beam an ER doctor into a living room via any mobile device out there,” said Wagner, who noted that each patient consult lasts 10 to 15 minutes.
There is a 98 percent patient satisfaction with the experience, Wagner said.
“That is a crazy good idea,” Bean said after watching the video.
