The Doctors Company Supports iHealthRecord

The Doctors Company has endorsed the iHealthRecord, a secure interactive online personal health record, by Medem, Inc.

Medem, Inc. was founded in 1999 by the American Medical Association (AMA) and U.S. medical societies to develop a suite of integrated online patient-physician communication and health care services. Medem works with 48 medical societies, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, liability carriers, and health plans. Privacy policies and data use are governed by iHealth Alliance, a not-for-profit advisory board chaired by former AMA President Nancy Dickey, MD, with representatives from health care organizations such as the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.

The suite of Medem network services includes:

iHealthRecord—a secure, interactive online personal health record, built and accessed from your Medem Practice Web site, is under the control of the patient and free of charge to your patients. The patient can grant viewing privileges to physicians, hospitals, clinics, and emergency departments. Consumers can access the iHealthRecord from any of the 70,000 network physician Web sites that offer the service or at www.ihealthrecord.org or www.medem.com. Consumers can find physicians who offer the iHealthRecord service in the physician directories of the AMA, medical societies, and most major U.S. health plans (including Aetna, CIGNA, Anthem, United, Connecticare, and BlueCross BlueShield plans). The iHealthRecord includes current medical conditions and medical history, medications, previous surgeries and procedures, allergies, immunizations, emergency contacts, insurance ID, pharmacy ID, etc. The iHealthRecord is also being integrated with major electronic medical records.

iHealthRecord provides online access to critical health data for patients, physicians, and caregivers. When patients call for an appointment, they can be instructed to go to the physician’s Web site and complete the iHealth registration. This only needs to be done once, and it then replaces the “clipboard” as the vehicle for office registration. In completing the registration, patients are also creating a personal health record that will be theirs for the rest of their lives and will provide them with educational information, FDA recall warnings for their medications, and emergency department access to their records whenever it might be needed. Patients can be asked to review or update their iHealthRecord online and print it prior to appointments. Patients who forget to print their iHealthRecord can have a copy printed in the office. This strategy results in nearly all patients in a practice being enrolled in the iHealthRecord within 12 to 18 months—making life easier for patients and improving office throughput.

If a medication listed in the iHealthRecord matches an FDA recall or patient safety warning, the notification is sent directly to the patient, thereby taking some of the burden of notifying patients off the doctor. It also creates an audit trail showing that the notification was sent and opened.

Automated Disease Management (“Adherence”)

Services—the iHealthRecord also allows patients to receive automated patient education and medication/condition-specific disease management messages and reminders. These patient education programs come from authoritative organizations, including the AMA Physician Consortium, the FDA, CDC, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and leading medical societies. Messages can be approved or edited by the physician. Physicians can also create their own adherence programs for their patients.

Secure Messaging—is a HIPAA-compliant messaging service that allows patients to communicate more efficiently with their doctors using secure e-mail. This service facilitates administrative messaging between office staff and patients, e.g., appointment requests, prescription refill requests, administrative questions, and automated appointment reminders.

Online Consultation™—allows secure physician-patient messaging for online clinical consultations. If patients are charged a fee for Online Consultations (typically a copayment amount), there is a separate Medem transaction fee. If no fee is charged, Online Consultation is included as a network service. Some health plans now pay for a portion of Online Consultations, and there is a CPT code for this service.

Secure Pay—enables patients to pay outstanding balances via their physician’s Web site using major credit cards.

Customizable Physician Practice Web Site:

• Features an award-winning library of clinical information from organizations that include the AMA, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the FDA, and the CDC.
• Provides new patient access to physicians through exclusive links to the provider directories of health plans representing more than 70 million lives.
• Web site services can be linked to other existing Web sites.
• Medem online services (including iHealthRecord) can be accessed by patients from their physician’s Web site.

To Participate

The Doctors Company regards the iHealthRecord as an important patient safety initiative and a significant first step in making the National Health Information Technology Plan a reality. We believe it has the potential to improve the quality of patient care, facilitate medication compliance and disease management, and, ultimately, to reduce claims of medical malpractice. We encourage all physicians to participate. Medem is offering members of The Doctors Company a discounted fee of $24.50 per month for all Medem services, including the iHealthRecord.

For more information, please visit www.ihealthrecord.org or www.medem.com. To join the Medem network, call Medem Member Services toll-free at (877) 926-3336, from 7 A.M. to 5 P.M. PST, Monday through Friday or via e-mail at info@medem.com. The Medem Member Services representative will assist you in setting up your Medem account and will ensure that you receive the discounted rate of $24.50 per month afforded to members of The Doctors Company.

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