With an emphasis on clinical outcomes and patient engagement, the patient care experience is changing at healthcare organizations across the country. In fact, the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) initiative was designed to bring a higher quality and more coordinated care at a lower cost to Medicare. Organizations would enter into payment arrangements that include financial and performance accountability for episodes of care. Yet problems persisted.
With more than 20 years of experience in the healthcare sector, including direct patient care, sales, and consulting for health systems and manufacturers, Harold Mondschein saw many inefficiencies that continued to plague the surgical care process.
“Silos remain and their process continues to be more reactive than proactive,” he says. “Despite hospitals spending large sums of money on electronic medical records, there are still inefficiencies and gaps in communications. Unfortunately many healthcare systems don’t have the tools in place, suffer from technology fatigue, and are scrambling to achieve success within the shift to value-based care initiative.”
That’s when Mondschein decided to co-found Medtel, a New York City-based company which produces a software program used by hospitals to reduce costs, integrate physician and patient programs, and addresses bundled payments and value-based care. Since 2013, Medtel has been connecting surgical offices to their hospitals and providing them with the earliest opportunity to identify the clinical and financial risks of a procedure.
“With the evolution of value-based purchasing both challenges and opportunities are emerging for hospitals as they manage costs, grow market share and standardize in order to improve quality,” says Mondschein. “Providers are looking for a system that they can rapidly implement to manage an episode of care.”
Mondschein adds that they believe that the most effective way to streamline the episode of care is through a proactive approach that identifies challenges before they arise, and can support continuous process improvement as value-based reimbursement evolves.“We have helped hospitals and surgeons successfully administer value-based surgical tools to optimize an episode of care,” explains Mondschein. “At the time a surgeon determines surgery is needed, Medtel puts all key team members—including vendors, if needed—on the same page at the same time.”
Medtel is also closing the communication loopholes in the surgical care process. By closing these gaps, Medtel’s intuitive, cloud-based software improves cost-savings, efficiency, safety and compliance. Behind the scenes, the Medtel software solution supports surgeons and their surgical team members with the critical information prior to a surgical procedure to deliver successful episodes of care.
Mondschein says that its customers believe it is Medtel’s unique ability to identify challenges before they arise as critical to their success. NYU Langone Medical Center in New York is one healthcare organization that is currently utilizing Medtel.
“We are proud of our contribution to NYU’s success in the BPCI model,” says Mondschein. “Medtel’s impact on enhancing contribution margins and efficiencies by shaping behavior prior to a surgical event is a tremendous accomplishment. Their surgeons and administrators would agree.”
One big surprise that new customers of Medtel come away with is ease of use and rapid implementation.
“Most providers are inundated with technology requests and have become leery of healthcare technology solutions,” Mondschein says. “Deploying technology can become a daunting task for most IT departments and executives. They know they need to deliver value-based care, but it’s very difficult to find a proven, pragmatic approach to achieve success. We are committed to shifting the risk and burden away from our hospital partners. Ease of use and rapid implementation disarms their team members, enhances workflows and delivers a tangible financial impact beyond their expectations.”
Medtel shifts risk away from the hospital in several ways, notes Mondschein.
“We are highly confident in our software solution, and as a result we guarantee an ROI or we will adjust our fees,” he says. “It takes less than 15 minutes to train the users, and it works with any software and requires no IT lifting. We do all the work.”
By simply automating the connection between surgical offices and a hospital, here are several of the other advantages of using Medtel, according to Mondschein:
– An easy to use solution that structures communication and eliminates unreliable faxes and phone calls
– Improved workflow coordination amongst the offices, surgeons, staff, case coordinators/navigators and vendors
– Increased contribution margins by identifying the clinical and financial risks prior to a surgical event
– A full audit trail to continuously drive process improvements/value-based reimbursement success
“The surgical care process has always been an incredibly challenging environment, and when we hear our physicians and administrators describe the Medtel impact on workflows and contribution margins it is an amazing feeling,” says Mondschein. “I worked in pediatric neuro for the first half of my career and when you see the valuable influence we have created within the surgical care process it is incredibly rewarding. This is a software solution designed to do right by the patient, hospital, physician and staff. When we hear our physicians and administrators discuss the impact that we’ve made it is incredibly satisfying.”
One reason for the company’s rapid success in such a short time period has been its team, comprised of a diverse group looking at healthcare from multiple perspectives. Mondschein says that it is this blend of experiences and in-depth knowledge of the healthcare environment that has created a powerful tool in the surgical care process.
“We challenge ourselves and each other in the office, we are committed at home, and we are passionate about our individual philanthropic endeavors,” he says. “It has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding opportunity and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with our healthcare providers to deliver best-in-class care.”
