eConsults Reduce Specialty Costs

Lower Specialty Costs Across the Healthcare Spectrum

eConsults reduce eConsults specialty costs by eliminating unnecessary referrals and securing timely access to necessary care from within the primary care setting.

Video Transcript:

AristaMD’s care transition platform reduces specialty costs, which saves money. And I believe it saves time. A lot of mid-levels are using the service to reduce over or under-testing. The platform allows for a more direct workup of the problem they’re trying to figure out rather than doing this overall global kind of workup for somebody that’s more pointed and exact. The direct route the platform provides saves a lot of money.

Also, the nurse practitioners and the PAs end up being able to learn something from it so that the next time they go to work somebody up for the same problem, they’re not repeating all of the same testing. They’re more pointedly saying, ‘oh, this is what I need to do because this isn’t the differential; this is the kind of work I need to do over time.’ Over time, we’re finding specialists are getting used to the platform to the point where if they see a referral coming from us, they know it will be a high-quality referral. The specialists know they will not have to provide primary care in the specialty care setting and consume resources better spent treating a different population. The eConsult platform streamlines access to care by specialists in that way.

eConsults save specialty costs

eConsult Program Analysis: Save $3M in Annual Referral Specialty Costs

Wondering what your organization’s ROI could be by leveraging an eConsult program? Learn more about why innovation is essential within the transition to value-based care and what your telehealth cost savings could be through an in-depth analysis of how eConsults reduce unnecessary spending while improving access to quality care.

​Within the shift from fee-for-service payment models to value-based care, it has become increasingly important for healthcare providers to focus on optimizing the referral process and referring patients to the right place at the right time. Health plans are missing out on critical programs to support this transition. An assessment of telehealth cost savings is essential when assessing tools and resources to support organizational goals.

In addition to increasing access to quality specialty care, eConsult cost savings result from decreased healthcare spending stemming from unnecessary referrals, chronic disease management, and high-risk patients.

An eConsult program within the overall cost of care

National health expenditure growth is expected to average 5.5 percent annually over 2017-2026, according to a report published today as an “Ahead Of Print” by Health Affairs and authored by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Growth in national health spending is projected to be faster than projected growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1.0 percentage points over 2017-2026. As a result, the report projects the health share of GDP to rise from 17.9% in 2016 to 19.7% by 2026.