EHR Inbox @ucsf by Maria Byron MD at UCSF

The brave souls at UCSF. Billing for online patient messages = eVisits.

Dr. Byron discussing UCSF data on billed messages.

Live since summer of 2020. version 1.0. eVisit Vs patient advice request. Patient has to find the options. Really hard to teach them how to do this. ‘I don’t know, CAN you do this online?’ Lot of uncertainty by all. Low use.

11/2021 new experiment. Single way to send. Consent with each message, it may be billed.

Make it super simple for clinician work.

Now experimenting with a protocol for MA to have criteria to sort message to eVisit without bothering clinician. PFAC v supportive of this change. Out of pocket costs comparable to in person visit.

13,000 eVisits. 900,000 threads encompassing about 3M messages. 1.4% conversion rate. (Is that the right number we need to shoot for?) Decline of 3% reduction decrease of messages overall. $470,000 revenue. No increase in phone. No complaints to patient relations. No reports of patients not seeking care. Patient advisory councils report favorable change. Watching for disparities. Not seeing any. Based on race, ethnicity, language, payer, age. still this is a big psychological win for our clinicians.

Thank you to Dr. Byron for such a thoughtful approach and leading the way on this path.

Author: CT Lin

CMIO, UCHealth (Colorado); Professor, University of Colorado School of Medicine

Leave a Reply

%d