Got a Question about VNSNY’s Future? Ask the CEO!

Welcome to Ask the CEO, where President and CEO Dan Savitt answers questions from VNSNY staff about what the future holds. If you have a question to ask Dan about VNSNY’s future plans, please email [email protected].

Here is our first question about VNSNY’s future:

“With the pandemic, telehealth has become a big part of healthcare delivery as well as visiting MD/house calls. In the future, will VNSNY ever expand into this model of primary care?”

And here is the answer…

What’s happening currently:

Long before the pandemic hit, we were already using telehealth in our care management organization, which relies mostly on virtual visits and remote patient monitoring to support the health of high-risk individuals. This mostly remote approach has proven very effective at preventing hospital admissions among chronically ill patients, and includes virtual visits by a number of disciplines including nurse practitioners, nurse care managers, and social workers.

VNSNY’s use of telehealth in other parts of our business also increased significantly during the pandemic as a way of protecting our staff as well as our patients, plan members, and clients. Once COVID-19 hit, we began substituting in-home care visits with virtual visits — either via video conferencing (Zoom/Microsoft Teams) or phone consultations. Over the past year, we’ve used telehealth for:

• Follow-up visits by our Home Care nurses
• Rehab sessions with our physical and occupational therapists
• Virtual counseling provided our Community Mental Health Services and hospice staff

What VNSNY’s future holds for telehealth and primary care house calls:

• Our care management organization will continue to use a telehealth-centered model going forward.
• How much we use telehealth in other parts of our care — including VNSNY Home Care and Hospice — depends on whether we can get reimbursed for providing virtual care. Medicare and managed care payers currently do not reimburse for telehealth home visits.
• What could help: There is pending legislation in Congress called The Home Health Emergency Access to Telehealth Act (HEAT) that will set telehealth reimbursement requirements, should the bill get passed. If you’d like to contact your elected official and urge him or her to support HEAT, please click here.
• Something else to look forward to: As far as this question’s specific focus on delivering primary care through telehealth, we currently conduct primary care visits in the home through ESPRIT, our Home-Based Medical Practice. In these visits, nurse practitioners conduct in-home assessments, which are like wellness visits. We’re looking to expand this practice and to include urgent-care visits as part of its services (which we now do through a house call practice that we’ve partnered with). Going forward, we’ll be looking to leverage ESPRIT in other ways as well. As we expand ESPRIT, we will be utilizing as much virtual care and telehealth technology as possible to supplement the in-home visits that these care providers make to our patients.