World's Largest Health Travel Network Already Meets New Standards for Medicare Quality Program

Dec. 2, 2011 - PRLog -- In 2013, all Medicare-certified ASCs will be required to report whether they used such a checklist during the entire year of 2012.    For an ASC to be able to report that they did, it must begin using the checklist no later than January 1, 2012, and continue using it through the entire year. Additionally, reporting the use of a safe surgery checklist will be an annual requirement in Medicare's quality reporting program in the future.

Mercury Healthcare International (MHI), the world's largest health travel management company is proud to announce that all hospital and ambulatory surgery centers in its globally integrated health delivery system® already meet this "new" standard. This may be because the network seeks out healthcare facilities with one or more ISQua recognized accreditation programs in place.  The company routinely coordinates health travel logistics for patients of all ages, including those covered by Medicare and employer group health plans, to help them obtain healthcare from members of its provider network in all 50 states and 92 countries abroad.

"Frankly, we're surprised that Medicare is gearing up for this now, because the tool has been out there for three years.  MHI's participating hospitals and ASCs worldwide are queried about such use and it has been apart of our inspection process and observation in surgery since our 2009 site visits", says Maria K Todd, MHA PhD, CEO and founder of Mercury, and a former surgical nurse. "If a facility that we inspect doesn't use the checklist in their operating theaters, they automatically would not be privileged to provide elective surgical services. In addition to denying privileges, our procedure is to leave them with a printed copy of the one page surgical safety checklist  (http://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/tools_resour...) and the implementation manual (http://www.who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/tools_resour...) published by the WHO.

For the record, not one hospital or ambulatory clinic we've inspected in America or in any developed or developing nation has ever been found not to be using the surgical safety practices. Our established, written policies and inspection criteria includes direct observation of three surgical case starts and three surgical case conclusions by a trained nurse or physician inspector. The very reason those observations are a part of the inspection process is so that the MHI site inspector is able to directly observe and sign off on the attestation that the WHO Surgical Safety procedure is in use" says Todd.

Todd has been quite vocal about her dismay with recent reports by several bloggers and academics who claim to have done thorough research into safety and vetting procedures in the growing medical tourism sub sector.  One Canadian citizen’s research addresses ethical and social issues related to transnational medical travel and the emergence of a global marketplace in health services. The author states that the reports come from five years of research, but five years ago the picture was very different than the current state of the sector.  She states that it is inaccurate and perhaps even unrepresentative, to portray the current state of the health travel marketplace with reports using old data from as far back as five years ago. The medical tourism and health travel marketplace continues to witness steep learning and process improvement curves in safety, transparency, care continuity and outcomes measurement sophistication across entire episodes of globally-integrated care.

The practices and procedures followed by MHI incorporate examples gleaned from  tough due diligence criteria we've gathered in the USA and abroad, applied uniformly throughout our health delivery system.  We are quick to adopt any patient safety or health information systems practices or new evidence-based medicine guidelines that we identify in our travels.  MHI often discovers that it has to create new globally integrated care continuity procedures because it couldn't find any that were already developed and tested.  Todd grins proudly when she says that MHI is adaptive and responsive and "often able to more quickly implement global health and safety procedures than the CMS is to regulate them into practice."

Why would Medicare standards come under the purview of a health travel management company? Because, says Todd, in some cases, Medicare beneficiaries are retired expats living abroad in remote areas with healthcare shortages who must travel to access healthcare outside the US.  Often, they opt to remain abroad and receive care at prices lower than their Medicare co-payments and deductibles plus the cost to travel back to the states. We strive to meet or exceed Medicare and managed care patient safety standards at all network locations, not just those provider sites in the USA.

In other cases, they count on us to coordinate the health travel logistics to receive care from a healthcare provider within the USA but far away from their hometown. This is more often done to be nearer to a family member that may be able to provide social support and assistance during recuperation and aftercare."

Todd says that as families spread out across America, an increasing number of seniors are separated from their adult children who might otherwise help during recovery and aftercare.  Also, specialized care might actually be scarce and not offered by a local Critical Access Hospital (CAH) in rural America.  While CAHs are an excellent choice for routine hometown care, they are often limited in their ability to provide highly specialized treatment and technology. Much of the limitation comes from budget constraints and dependence on reduced federal funding and some comes from not having the specialists available to operate the equipment if it were there.

Family members welcome parents to visit and receive treatment, "but count on us to handle the health travel management logistics to get their parents' medical records, reports, test results, and admissions and discharge coordination in order."  MHI handles the details and coordinates travel for them and communicates electronically with all the providers seamlessly and securely using specialized health travel case managers available to members of its consumer programs.

Todd  expects that as CMS automatically reduces provider reimbursement by 27.4% due to the failure of the bipartisan Supercommittee,  Medicare payment reductions will force beneficiaries to seek care at locations further from home just to find someone still willing to accept them as a patient and grant an appointment without long delays.

Todd says that MHI has already implemented an electronic health record (EHR) that is ONC-ATCB 2011/2012 compliant and certified as a Complete EHR in accordance with the applicable criteria adopted by the HHS. On Nov 30, HHS announced a one-year extension for US providers.  MHI already does ICD-10 backwards conversion for the USA and medical records translation by certified procedure coders and translators to facilitate claims payment by TPAs. They also manage the world's first global implant registry that tracks implants of any type or brand, regardless of where it was implanted, and tracks it in a cloud-based, globally integrated and accessible EHR.

Todd and the MHI leadership frequently share corporate and industry best practices, model checklists, techniques, and lessons learned with contemporaries at the most respected global health and medical tourism sector conferences in the spirit of "see one, do one, teach many".  Many are also shared in the Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development (2011, Productivity Press, New York) a professional reference book for healthcare providers and hospital administrators, and The Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook (2011, Productivity Press, New York) both set for release by the publisher in the next ten days.

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About Mercury Healthcare International, Inc.

Mercury Healthcare International, Inc., is the largest medical tourism and health travel management company in the world. Its provider network has over 800,000 providers and over 6,000 hospitals in 92 countries. The company offers a wide spectrum of employee benefit solutions including traditional PPO Access with MultiPlan and PHCS networks availability, its proprietary network of providers offering fully-inclusive bundled case rates for high-cost surgeries, a prescription drug savings program, cost containment, employee travel accident and illness management, emergency medical evacuation, cost containment, disease management, predictive modeling, international case management, in-house complete health travel logistics coordination, and fully integrated electronic medical records to coordinate continuity of care worldwide for domestic and expatriate workforces alike. Please visit http://www.mercury-healthcare.com for more information.