Telehealth got its start in the 1950’s when a psychiatric hospital created a video link with an acute care hospital to treat a patient 112 miles away. Flash forward 70 years and we are witnessing the explosion of Telehealth into the mainstream.

Largely driven by the global Coronavirus pandemic, As Seema Verma, the administrator of CMS, said in April of 2020, “the genie’s out of the bottle on this one… there’s absolutely no going back.”

However, there is a lot of work to be done in order to institutionalize Telehealth, capitalize on its opportunities, and operationalize its upside.

Sure, we all see the benefit of Teledoc or Doctor on Demand – where you may be lucky enough to have an employer-sponsored plan that covers these services at no cost to you, or you are free to shell out $45 per visit. Teleradiology and Telestroke services have also been relatively stable for years now and can help hospitals reduce overhead, resolve staffing issues, and deliver care faster and more effectively.

Despite many of the upsides, we still do not – though the pandemic has changed things some – seen universal adoption. Some impediments remain including, reimbursement, qualifications for Telehealth, belief in its efficacy, liability (or perhaps perceived liability), operational complexities and challenges, and more.

To talk about the state of Telehealth today and how you can take advantage of this rising movement is the inimitable Joseph Ebberwein.

Joe is the Co-founder and Chief Financial Officer at Corstrata, a Telehealth company that is re-imagining the way wound care is delivered to the 7 million people in the U.S. suffering with a chronic wound and the 1M people living life with an Ostomy.

After working at PwC early in his career, Joe moved into corporate healthcare and has spent 30 years in various leadership roles in the post-acute industry, working in innovative home-based care models such as home health, hospice, and private home care. Joe was fortunate to work with a team that successfully integrated Telehealth and remote patient monitoring into home health when remote patient monitoring first emerged in the early 2000s.

Joe has published and presented nationally on topics specific to Telehealth in wound care, chronic care cost management strategies, and the transformation of care delivery models from volume to value.

“There are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code for patient adherence or improvement, or for helping patients stay well.” -Clayton Christensen

Joe’s Top Books

· How Will You Measure Your Life? – Clayton Christensen

· Being Mortal – Atul Gwande

More on Joe and Corstrata

· https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-ebberwein/

· www.corstrata.com

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