The Hidden Costs of Healthcare Telecommunications
Today, many activities either drive up or contribute to the increased cost of healthcare delivery. These activities are often invisible to the general public. Two of the prime drivers of these increased healthcare costs are governmental regulations and unfunded mandates that are totally transparent to healthcare consumers, but are very real to healthcare providers that must comply with these regulations and mandates. Subsequently, the vendors who offer various services to healthcare providers must help them meet these often burdensome mandates.
Multiple governmental regulations and mandates impinge on the telecommunications services that are vital to the delivery of quality healthcare. One example, HIPAA – the Health Insurance and Portability Accountability Act – was intended to ensure that employees could port their health insurance coverage from company to another when changing jobs. However, a seemingly small provision of this act specified that certain types of information transmitted on any patient had to be protected with secure privacy measures. This data was called “protected health information” (PHI). The protection of this data has generated literally “mountains of work” for healthcare providers and vendors. Any transmitted PHI must be encrypted and sent over secure telecommunications media. This has been a huge driver of healthcare costs.
In addition, the auditing, tracking and responding to governmental “watchdog” agencies that monitor the regulations regarding the secure transmission of PHI has been another tremendous driver of costs.
Some of these cost drivers have actually added value to the delivery of patient care. In regard to patient safety, mandated responses to patient alerts and their escalations schemes have more than likely enhanced patient care and saved lives in certain care settings.
In general, however, when a governmental regulation or mandate is decreed – no matter if it’s viewed as positive or negative — the cost of healthcare and its delivery will be increased.