OhMD Team

Automated Appointment Reminders Decrease Patient No-Show Rate

Every day, practices lose thousands of dollars due to patient no-shows. Some experts estimate patient no-shows can cost a single physician upwards of  $150,000 annually, not to mention the labor hours spent rescheduling missed appointments. Staff is forced to divert their attention from improving the patient care experience to searching through schedules, calling patients (often… Read On

OhMD Team

Primary Care First and Patient Communication

What is Primary Care First? As a part of the CMS Primary Cares plan, Primary Care First is the newly proposed value-based reimbursement program for physician practices. The goal for this plan is simple: reimburse physicians for delivering care that keeps patients healthy and out of the hospital. It prioritizes the importance of the doctor-patient… Read On

OhMD Team

CMS Primary Cares – A path forward for primary care

What is CMS Primary Cares? Today, CMS announced a new plan called CMS Primary Cares, which is a plan to reimburse physician practices based on value and outcomes. The goal is to give primary care practices financial incentives to keep patients healthy and out of the emergency department. In rewarding physicians for keeping patients healthy,… Read On

OhMD Team

The email from an OhMD user

I was at the office late one night last summer when my iPhone buzzed on the desk. *New email* It was from a pediatrician on that I had spoken to a few times in the past. I was expecting a support question or a feature request, but this email was different: Wow. I always believed… Read On

OhMD Team

5 Burlington Startups to Watch

Given Vermont’s reputation for snow sports and miles of mountains, one might expect the Green Mountain State to be full of startups that live up to it. That expectation is true; but it’s not the end of the story. Take Burlington, for instance. The state’s largest city is home to several interesting startups, in fields… Read On

OhMD Team

The CMS RPM Reimbursement Rule – Getting paid to text patients

Why texting for RPM reimbursement? Physicians rarely text patients. If you ask a physician why they don’t use texting for patient care, they will respond in one of the following ways: “My patient portal has messaging but nobody uses it.” “Why would I want patients texting me at all hours of the night?” “Nobody pays… Read On

OhMD Team

Healthcare IT News: HIPAA-compliant text messaging helps doctors, patients with care and recovery

Mel Viney, MD, is a hospitalist with emergency room responsibilities at Artesian Valley Health System and is on the front lines of the opioid crisis. He treats patients addicted to opioids every day. One such treatment includes the prescription of Suboxone, a narcotic medication used to aid recovering addicts with the symptoms of withdrawal from… Read On

OhMD Team

Patient Experience: 5 Ways to Get and Keep New Patients

There are thousands of companies out there that sell solutions to help you grow your medical practice. The majority of them focus almost entirely on marketing, not patient experience. There are companies to help you manage your Facebook Ads and Adwords campaigns. There are companies that sell practice website solutions. And of course, the newspaper… Read On

OhMD Team

TechCrunch: A Prescription for Healing the Healthcare Industry

Some of the biggest opportunities to improve the world exist in healthcare. The more smart people we entice to work on these problems, the better our world will be. Winning in healthcare can be building a billion-dollar company, while also tangibly improving and saving lives. OhMD — a HIPAA-compliant texting app — is intelligently targeting… Read On

OhMD Team

Leveraging OhMD’s Secure Text Messaging Platform for Mental Health / Counseling

We know mental and behavioral health professionals text a lot.  Whether you’re a therapist, social worker, psychologist or psychiatrist, chances are you already text with patients and referring providers.  OhMD is a free, secure platform that offers the convenience of texting without the security risk. Texting with patients: In the counseling field, it’s imperative to… Read On

OhMD Team

Leveraging OhMD’s Secure Text Messaging Platform for Concierge and Direct Primary Care

The Concierge Medicine and Direct Primary Care (DPC) models are built on the promise of providing the highest level of service to patients.  Many concierge providers give patients their personal cell phone number so that they can be accessible by text 24/7.  With OhMD you can deliver that same level of accessibility to patients without… Read On

OhMD Team

OhMD’s Secure Text Messaging Platform for Primary Care

Primary care practices are the hub of a patient’s medical care.  In a primary care practice providers need to provide a high level of patient care while seeing as many patients as possible, and minimize costs.  What if you had a solution that helped drive patient volume and reduced call volume by up to 30%,… Read On

OhMD Team

Text Messaging for Home Health

Doctors and nurses who work in home health are always on the go, and they need to secure way to stay in touch and manage their schedule. OhMD helps care providers at home health agencies communicate with colleagues, schedulers and patients. Why use OhMD? Use just one secure application to communicate with patients, collaborate on… Read On

OhMD Team

HIPAA Compliant Texting in Pediatrics

Like all primary care specialties, pediatric practices require a high level of patient engagement.  Kids get sick, parents get worried, and being accessible in those situations can make a big difference to patients and families.  But there are lots of ways that OhMD can use secure texting to help improve the efficiency of your practice.… Read On

OhMD Team

AllYouCanTech: He Took His Last Business From $1.5M to $10M/Year Helping Doctors. Now He Wants to Change Healthcare Communication

Meet Vermonter Ethan Bechtel, internet entrepreneur since 2000 and founder of healthcare text messaging platform OhMD. Hello Ethan! Thanks for chatting with AllYouCanTech. Can you please introduce your company to our audience?OhMD makes healthcare communication simple. We believe that improved communication improves patient outcomes while making physicians and healthcare providers more efficient and better at… Read On

OhMD Team

Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review: Solving the Interoperability Crisis in Healthcare with Consumer Tech

On June 15, 2017, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., announced that the FDA is preparing to launch a Digital Health Innovation Plan. The DHIP will resolve some of the ambiguity that exists regarding how the FDA approaches new technologies, allowing innovators to invest their time and resources more wisely. This is… Read On

OhMD Team

Three iOS and Android Apps that will Increase Physician Productivity

In September I went to the International Conference on Physician Health in Boston. My intern and I interviewed approximately 130 different healthcare professionals and providers on their favorite mobile apps to use on the job. About 60% of the providers I spoke with were internal medicine physicians and 40% were specialists. One complaint that kept coming up was… Read On

OhMD Team

HealthIT Security: Utilizing Secure Texting for Efficient, Simple Communications

Maintaining HIPAA compliance in provider-to-patient communication and even in physician-to-physician communication is critical, which is why secure texting has increased in popularity. With technology evolving, organizations cannot afford to compromise PHI through SMS texting or an unsecured email. However, covered entities also desire a simple and efficient way to transfer information that does not hinder… Read On

OhMD Team

HIPAA compliant email vs HIPAA compliant texting

Emailing is not the primary form of communication amongst younger generations. As a millennial, it’s fair to say that we are always on our phones. Whether we are using it to text, check Facebook, use Snapchat or Messenger it’s abundantly clear that we use our phones to quickly send messages to our friends and colleagues. Emails still… Read On

OhMD Team

Why OhMD’s co-founder Ethan Bechtel wants to fix healthcare communication

The CEO and co-founder of OhMD, Ethan Bechtel, is no stranger to healthcare and the life of a regular patient. Like many kids, Ethan spent his youth playing soccer, skiing, snowboarding, and pushing the limits.  “When I was young, we would snowboard in backyards on snowboards without bindings” said Bechtel. “They had a rope connected… Read On