Obamacare Giving Big Boost To Georgia's Health IT Industry
Politically, Georgia is fighting the health law at every turn.
Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, has chosen not to expand Medicaid, and the state’s insurance commissioner publically vowed to obstruct the Affordable Care Act. But that doesn’t mean Georgia isn’t seeing a financial benefit from the law.
Mark Gilreath heads the medical device company, EndoChoice, based in Alpharetta, Georgia. The business is part of a health tech boom in the state.
Take the company called PreMedex. Founder and president Van Willis knows that just a few years ago, a company like his would’ve been a hard sell -- impossible, even. The two-year-old company contracts with hospitals and doctors’ offices to call patients after they're discharged. Under the Affordable Care Act, hospitals are penalized if Medicare patients are readmitted within a month for several specific illnesses.
"From a hospital standpoint, there was very little, if any, communication with patients once they leave,” Willis explains. "A logical way to communicate with patients if you can’t be in their homes is, of course, through the telephone."
Scattered around a half-dozen office cubicles, PreMedex employees don telephone headsets on a recent morning and sit down in front of computers that automatically dial patients. After telling patients they are calling on behalf of doctors and hospitals, the workers ask some simple but important health questions: Have you had any fever? Are you in any pain?
How patients answer could mean the difference between a hospital’s profit and loss. Private insurers will probably follow Medicare’s lead on punishing readmissions. Willis says that’s creating a new market for companies like PreMedex.
"We’ve got clients across the country - small clients, large clients - they all feel the same pressures," he says.
More at: http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2014/january/09/georgia-high-tech-health-industry-boosted-by-health-law.aspx
Article discovered on the Obama Diary