Highmark Interactive (HMRK) has announced the roll-out of its EQ Remote Monitoring solution to the U.S. Orthopedic Alliance (“USOA”).
The USOA delivers health information technologies and practice management resources to orthopedic-specific group practices, ambulatory surgery centers and specialty surgery hospitals.
The Highmark EQ Remote Monitoring platform, a mobile application downloaded to a patients’ smart device, will enable the physician to monitor a patient before and after surgery and between clinical visits to personalize the patient’s treatment plan.
“We recognized that Highmark’s EQ Remote Monitoring platform can provide our physicians with unique, data-driven insights to support timely, proactive and personalized care plans,” said Rick Salas, CEO of USOA.
“We are committed to delivering technologies, like Highmark’s platform, to our member physicians to assist them in maximizing physician productivity and optimizing outcomes for all stakeholders – patients, providers and payers.”
The ability to better understand how a patient is recovering or progressing on a treatment plan through remote physical monitoring between office or virtual visits delivers insights to health teams that were previously not possible. Such insights enable physicians to develop care plans that can be more personalized to the individual patient.
Remote physiologic monitoring is a recently added reimbursement code by Medicare in the United States. It enables physicians to add remote monitoring to their services to improve patient outcomes.
In adopting Highmark’s EQ Remote Monitoring platform, a typical surgeon is anticipated to be able to generate an additional US$200,000 in annual revenue, while identifying and addressing concerns earlier that can minimize or prevent significantly more expensive downstream costs.
Highmark’s model for orthopedic practices is a hybrid of recurring SaaS revenue with additional per-patient use and implementation fees. During the initial USOA roll-out to 15 surgeons, Highmark anticipates generating an annual minimum of US$50,000 per surgeon. Subsequent expansion of the roll-out to USOA’s growing network of more than 100 physicians will generate incremental setup and recurring fees.
The potential market for the EQ Remote Monitoring Solution includes approximately 30,000 orthopedic surgeons in the United States alone.
Dr. Sanjeev Sharma, CEO of Highmark Interactive commented on the partnership with USOA.
“Partnering with USOA marks an important milestone in Highmark’s focus on expanding within the U.S. market. It is a tremendous validation of our technology, business model and opportunity to partner with more US physician practices for remote monitoring services.”
He added,
“The ability to capture important physiologic information about patients between clinic visits has remained elusive until now. Highmark’s EQ Remote Monitoring platform captures critical physiologic parameters, empowering both the patient and their clinicians to identify early signs of risk and enable proactive intervention that can materially reduce complications and the total cost of care for the patient.”
US Orthopedic Alliance (USOA) is a national organization focused on empowering independent orthopedic practices to excel. Independent orthopedic practices choose to work with USOA in order to gain advanced and robust orthopedic-specific practice resources and systems.
Highmark Interactive provides a complete solution for brain health through its proprietary digital brain health assessment tools and its growing network of virtual, in-clinic and hybrid clinics.
Shares of Highmark Interactive Inc. (HMRK) opened trading at C$0.22.