MedBridge Pathways, our new digital care platform, is purpose-built to keep therapy at the forefront of care and help your organization deliver superior patient outcomes across the musculoskeletal care spectrum.
We know you have questions about this new platform, and we have answers. In this article, we'll answer the most frequently asked questions we've received since announcing MedBridge Pathways.
- Why Pathways? Why Now?
- Product Scope
- Pathways Roadmap
- MedBridge Product Ecosystem
- Product Scope
- Pricing & Packaging
- Value to Customer
- HEP & RTM
- LMS
- I’m Ready! Now What?
Why Pathways? Why Now?
Why did you start with self-managed care Pathways?
We’re starting with the self-managed Pathway because we know the importance of patient engagement, patient retention, and patient satisfaction. We want patients to be able to take control of their journey and to want to continue coming back to the application to see success. As we build expertise within patient engagement, it is natural to introduce more complex Pathways that incorporate virtual therapy and hybrid care built on top of the infrastructure, which has been proven to engage patients.
I’ve offered suggestions on how to improve Pathways. Why haven’t these been implemented?
We love feedback on how we can improve our products! While we try to implement as many requested features as we can, this can be a challenge for software products that are built on legacy infrastructure. We are committed to continuing to improve our existing products, and with MedBridge Pathways, we believe we will be able to address many more of these requests and needs in a way that allows us to continue to innovate in the future.
Product Scope
About Pathways
Are Pathways customizable?
In our first release, we will have off-the shelf expert-validated Pathways. As we progress into more virtual physical therapy programs and Pathways for higher acuity patients, our design will allow for greater provider customization.
How often are surveys given?
Patients are prompted weekly to complete progress assessment surveys, which helps encourage patients to progress in their program as they feel ready. After a certain amount of time—or when a patient completes certain recovery milestones, a cadence will begin of outcomes, satisfaction, and progress marker questionnaires. Patients will also have the opportunity to provide feedback on Pathways content once the program has been completed.
Where do you see primary applications of the initial self-managed Pathways?
A self-managed program can benefit the patient experience and organizational outcomes in many ways. Ultimately, we are aiming for Pathways to help organizations keep more patients in your system rather than losing them to a payer’s network.
Our initial launch is focused on increasing access to therapy-driven patient care. Organizations can use Pathways in a number of ways, including:
- Preventing patient leakage and keeping patients in the system by prescribing self-managed Pathways to low-acuity/low-risk patients.
- Offering an option for patients who prefer an at-home program
- Continuing post-PT care at home independently
- Providing a pre-evaluation program to bridge long wait times
For Patients
How do you enroll patients into a Pathway?
Patients will be able to enroll in several different ways. Clinicians will have the option of sending an invitation to their patients as well as placing QR codes in the clinic so patients can sign up themselves.
What is onboarding like? Is it personalized?
The Pathways app progressively onboards patients by organically highlighting features and teaching patients how to use various features on the platform as they come across them. The app will ask patients a series of questions about their condition, personal preferences, pain levels, and more, and a customized Pathway will be built based on their responses. For each care plan, patients will receive an onboarding flow that welcomes them and educates them on the why, the what, and the how of each aspect of their program so they understand why the program was assigned to them, what is expected of them, and how the program will help them reach their goals.
Do patients need to download a mobile app?
No. Pathways will be available to patients through a web app that is optimized for mobile devices. Mobile readiness as a must for this product.
How does the app screen patients for red flags?
MedBridge Pathways screens for red flags through progression assessments, in which the patient is asked a series of questions. When flagged, the patient will be shown a warning message that they should stop their program and follow up with their care team. The care team will also be notified via our Pathways dashboard.
In future builds, we will continue building out red flag screening features, including gathering feedback via additional assessments within the patient’s daily activities such as their exercise session feedback, daily symptom tracker, and motion capture analysis.
Pathways Roadmap
What is MedBridge’s plan for Virtual PT?
We’re planning to incorporate an AI-enabled clinician-facing solution that supports our patient-facing application. The platform will provide a dashboard that allows the clinician to control and modify the Pathway for their patients. This offering will provide clinicians with more support and flexibility in how they engage with different segments of their patient population.
What is your roadmap for additional Pathways beyond low back pain?
We chose low-acuity back pain as our starting point because it is the most common MSK condition, affecting 80 percent of all Americans at some point. During our Beta and Early Adopter programs, we will be working with our customers to understand what additional Pathways would be beneficial and in high-demand.
MedBridge Product Ecosystem
How do RTM and Pathways work together?
RTM is a capability within Pathways. We know many customers use RTM in a range of ways, from reimbursement to measuring improved engagement and outcomes. Pathways will support this spectrum.
How does Pathways fit in with existing solutions such as HEP, RTM, and telehealth?
Pathways is the comprehensive product family that is MedBridge’s digital patient care solution. Pathways is organized by care strategies, and we’re building an extensive library of these strategies that Pathways will support over time.
Care strategies are how we think about different “patient to provider” engagement models as determined by patient acuity and provider touchpoints. We are initially building three distinct engagement models, or “Pathways”:
- Self-managed patient engagement: Initially focused on musculoskeletal pain, this Pathway will offer patients access to standards-based home exercise Pathways and certified educational content with responsive programming to adjust progression. This program is low touch from a provider perspective.
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Virtual physical therapy patient engagement: With a focus on higher-acuity symptoms, this Pathway uses a medium touch from the provider perspective and serves patients with higher needs by providing clinicians:
- The ability to create AI-assisted, custom virtual home therapy programs
- Patient-reported outcomes using industry-standard scales and qualified registries for ease of payer reporting
- Programmed and ad-hoc virtual touchpoints and patient feedback monitoring
- Hybrid care patient engagement: With a higher touch from a provider perspective, this program is focused on patients who triage into brick-and-mortar visits from the outset. This Pathway combines a regular cadence of virtual and in-person engagements, including motion capture for more precise monitoring of out-of-office engagements, higher degrees of physician customization, and more.
This list of care strategies will continue to grow as we add Pathways that support different “patient to provider” engagements over time.
Are you continuing to enhance your HEP and RTM products? What is next on your HEP and RTM roadmap?
MedBridge’s HEP and RTM products will absolutely continue to be supported and enhanced. They remain core to the future of MedBridge and underpin the ways in which we enable clinicians to care for patients.
We have several exciting improvements to these products that we will roll out by the end of the year, including:
- Enhancements to the patient profile, including patient feedback cards
- Pain and difficulty notification emails to alert clinicians of patient responses
- Patient-facing seven-day calendar to increase patient engagement with their program
- Improvements to the access code login workflow for simpler patient signup
- Improved tagging capabilities for RTM episodes
- Clinic-level enablement for RTM episodes
- Epic EHR direct integration for more streamlined workflows
- Raintree EHR integration enhancements to support multiple episodes of care
RTM continues to be an important part of our comprehensive digital patient care solution and is core to the development of Pathways. The currently available RTM capabilities will continue to be available to all customers, and as Pathways becomes generally available, you can expect RTM will be in place to support each care strategy.
The cost for RTM has been and will continue to be based on provider utilization. When an organization migrates to Pathways, the transition plan is designed to minimize disruption for both providers and patients.
Product Scope
Are you planning on using your own clinicians or ours?
MedBridge believes in partnership with providers first. We are building this solution to be an extension of an organization’s staff, not a replacement for them. We will never outsource this nor disintermediate the existing patient-provider relationship.
What type of analytics will exist within the platform?
A myriad of analytics for clinicians are available behind the application, including how many patients progress through each pathway and how far, measures of patient improvement, reporting on patient outcomes, and patient satisfaction metrics.
What outcomes tools are a part of Pathways?
Patient-reported outcomes will be an important component of Pathways. We are currently working on integrating this in the program.
How does AI play into the app?
MedBridge Pathways is designed to act as an extension of an organization’s staff, not a replacement. AI will be used to help customize and guide patients based on their responses to the in-app surveys.
Pricing & Packaging
What is the cost of Pathways?
Pricing will be available closer to the publicly available launch.
Will you price Pathways per clinician like you have with your other solutions?
Pricing will be available closer to the publicly available launch.
Is there a cost to the patient/consumer for using a Pathway? Or will the clinician cover the costs?
Pricing will be available closer to the publicly available launch.
Value to Customer
My business is still primarily fee-for-service. How can Pathways be used outside VBC arrangements?
MedBridge believes there is a spectrum from FFS to VBC and recognizes that every provider is at a different stage on this journey. The goal of MedBridge Pathways is to increase patient capacity while also reducing overall cost of care.
By introducing patients to therapy-first Pathways, we believe this will not only improve their overall care journey but will also likely prevent unnecessary interventions.
We are in ortho and most of our patients are lower acuity. If we send them to a self-managed program, we don’t have enough patients to fill our capacity.
Self-managed programs are not intended to reduce an organization’s patient population; rather, they are designed to enable providers to see a larger patient population of patients. With more prescriptive care Pathways, providers will be able to maximize their capacity with the end result of providers seeing more patients overall who are each receiving the precise care that meets their needs, which we know leads to better outcomes.
How are we supposed to get reimbursed for self-managed patients?
Self-managed patients can be directly reimbursed through virtual visits, RTM, and cash pay options, all of which are supported by Pathways.
How will MedBridge help ensure continued PT involvement and insight as patients "automatically progress" through their care Pathways?
Each MedBridge Pathway serves as a supplemental tool, approved in both structure and decision points by the licensed clinician managing the patient. Real-time tracking and feedback will be readily available for clinician review, ensuring that medical expertise continues to guide patient care.
HEP & RTM
Does the launch of Pathways mean you are sunsetting HEP?
No. MedBridge HEP will absolutely continue to be supported and remains an important part of the MedBridge product suite.
LMS
Is MedBridge still focused on providing education and the learning management system?
Absolutely. MedBridge continues to be incredibly proud of our education, which serves over 300,000 clinicians, and we plan to continue releasing new educational content and features.
I’m Ready! Now What?
How do I get involved in the beta program?
Thank you for your interest! Our Betas are currently full with a good mix of customers representing the spectrum of MSK care. Following Beta, we will have opportunities for early adopters. If that is of interest to you, please reach out and we’ll stay connected with more information on this opportunity to get involved early.
What do we do in the interim? How can I get the most out of MedBridge now as a current customer? Should we be doing anything now to prepare for Pathways?
We look forward to continuing the conversation with providers to better understand each organization’s specific needs and capacity, and we will provide more information in the future about how providers and organizations can prepare to move forward quickly with MedBridge Pathways.