Over the years, the healthcare industry has seen an influx of technological advancement that has improved the service and care for patients and consumers.
New York City’s, Josiane Peluso, has been the director of Medicare Sales and Marketing with a fortune 500 company for the past eight years, starting as a health education specialist and progressively moving into marketing. Through her experiences, she has seen what networking has done for her own career growth. Working at one of the largest insurance providers in the state of New York, community outreach and education programs have been important for Peluso’s team to reach out to the communities in need like lower income seniors. She shares how the healthcare insurance industry has been impacted by technology.
Improvements with Health Records
When it comes to tracking and storing data, having digital copies of health records has made it a simpler and more efficient task considering the old system involved information being printed and kept in storage boxes.
Josiane Peluso has seen in the Medicare industry the safeguards that have to be considered to prevent health records from being lost or stolen by hackers. In 2015, 80 million customers and employees from Anthem (the second-largest health insurance company in the U.S.) had their names and addresses stolen although medical data wasn’t breached.
Being able to find a patient’s record has never been simpler and not as time consuming, which makes insurance claims a less tedious process. Electronic health records have also increased in the demand on insurance companies.
The switch has also reduced the cost for patients by 3% according to a study from the University of Michigan.
Technology and Healthcare Deficiencies
The Association of American Medical Colleges reported that the U.S. faces a shortage of between 40,800 and 104,900 physicians by 2030. To help combat that, healthcare officials see technology as a vital component in providing quicker and more accurate diagnosis.
While Josiane Peluso has seen a heavy reliance on these tools, she notes that they do not eliminate the risk of misdiagnosis or no diagnosis of an existing condition which has become a leading cause of loss in the healthcare insurance industry. Instead of spending more time with patients, physicians are trying to be more efficient, which does not always lead to enough quality examinations.
While physicians used to physically examine patients and do in-person diagnostic testing, many of these appointments are now being done over the internet, a mobile app, or even a phone call. Telemedicine potentially opens up new liabilities for physicians, as they are not face to face with their patients and they may not ask the questions that are normally asked during an in-person consultation.
Final Thoughts from Josiane Peluso
As technology continues to become a larger part of everyday life, the healthcare insurance industry continues to find ways to make sure it stays on top of the latest developments.
At this point in time, these advancements are more important than ever before. Virtual appointments and alternate methods are more popular now due to the current pandemic. Any doctors that were not already providing these types of services now must shift their methods in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and keep their patients, staff, and themselves safe.
The current pandemic aside, these services will increase in popularity as the years go on, which has both positive and negative impacts on the healthcare industry overall, concludes Josiane Peluso.
