Health insurance companies increasingly are using social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to interact with patients, but they generally are not using such channels to engage with physicians, American Medical News reports.

Engaging With Patients

Health plans are trying out different strategies for establishing a presence on social media platforms, which are relatively new outlets for insurers. For example, some insurers are using social media tools to:

• Provide health tips to consumers;
• Discuss policy matters, such as the implementation of the federal health reform law;
• Highlight sponsored health projects; and
• Humanize the company by offering profiles and videos of employees.

In addition, many insurers monitor comments about them that appear on social media sites. In some cases, the health plans respond directly to people who appear to need assistance.

Less Outreach to Physicians

Insurers generally are not using social networking websites to communicate with physicians.

Ingrid Lindberg, customer experience officer for Cigna, said reaching out to doctors is difficult because social media-based correspondence typically is not integrated with physicians’ workflow and is not a preferred communications outlet.

A WellPoint representative said the company is exploring ways to engage with physicians through social media, as well as through mobile devices.

Limitations to Social Media Strategies

Despite the growing popularity of social media, insurers are restricted in their use of such online tools because HIPAA privacy and security rules limit the sharing of personal health data.

To avoid violating privacy regulations, insurers that communicate on social media sites often redirect their interactions with consumers to telephone conversations (Berry, American Medical News, 1/24).

Source: iHealthBeat

Health insurance investigators are considering social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter as tools to conduct claims investigations, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The insurance industry says fraud costs the U.S. up to $80 billion annually, accounting for up to 10% of total yearly health care spending.

Insurer Practices

According to National Insurance Crime Bureau spokesperson Frank Scafidi, insurers “look out for things that don’t add up.” For example, insurers could investigate someone who claimed an injury for work but had posted on Facebook about running a marathon.

Insurance companies also are examining whether data available on social networking sites can be used to help underwrite policies.

Mike Fitzgerald — a senior analyst at Celent, the insurance consulting arm of brokerage firm Marsh & McLennan — said insurers could find social media valuable to compare what individuals admit about lifestyle choices and what they reveal online.

Concerns

However, some insurance lawyers say that such practices could lead companies to monitor profiles to raise premiums or deny claims, the Times reports.

Vedica Puri — a partner at Pillsbury & Levinson, a law firm specializing in insurance — said, “The situation is coming up more and more in court where lawyers for insurance companies lay traps for the insured based on pictures or postings on Facebook or Twitter.”

Peter Foley, vice president of claims administration at the American Insurance Association, said insurance investigators could be deemed negligent if they did not scan social media sites for contradictions. He added that anything found on social networking sites should only be a starting point for investigations and not final proof of fraud (Li, Los Angeles Times, 1/25).

Source: iHealthBeat

For any questions or interest in social media for your practice, don’t hesitate to contact us.

In 2010, 89 million U.S. adults tapped social media resources for health-related purposes, compared with 63 million in 2008 and 38 million in 2007, according to a Manhattan Research study.

Consumers who used social media for medical purposes created or consumed content on blogs, chat rooms, message boards, online communities and patient testimonials.

According to the study, certain medical condition groups that tend to skew older, such as patients with cancer, are more likely to use social media for health reasons than their average age would predict.

Results are based on a Q3 2010 survey of 8,606 U.S. adults ages 18 and older.

Source: Manhattan Research, “Cybercitizen Health U.S.”

For any questions on social media and how it would fit into your practice, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Social media tools can be effective in maintaining participation in online health programs, according to a University of Michigan Medical School study, Healthcare IT News reports.

Research Details

Researchers found that an interactive social media site added to an Internet-based walking program significantly lowered the number of participants who dropped out.

The study showed that:

• 79% of participants who used an online forum for group motivation remained in the 16-week program; and
• 66% of those who used the walking site without the social media components finished the program.

Implications

According to researchers, the findings indicate that adding social media features to online programs can reduce attrition, as well as costs associated with traditional interventions, such as face-to-face meetings.

The study authors added that cutting down on attrition rates could result in more positive health outcomes and greater cost savings.

Source: iHealthBeat

For any questions regarding social media and how to incorporate it within your practice, don’t hesitate to contact us.

Social media has invaded health care from at least three fronts: innovative startups, patient communities and medical centers. The Health 2.0 movement has nurtured dozens of startups with creative concepts to revolutionize health care: tools from vertical search and social networks to health content aggregators and wellness tools.

Patient communities are flourishing in an environment rich with social networks, both through mainline social communities and condition-specific communities. Meanwhile, hospitals and academic medical centers are diving into the social media mix with more than 300 YouTube channels and 500 Twitter accounts. Hospitals are moving from experimentation (Twittering from the OR to Flipcam videos) to strategic use of social media to enhance brand loyalty and recruit new patients. They are taking on monitoring and monetization of social media.

At the same time, health care organizations find challenges in adopting social media. Hospitals and medical practices are risk adverse and generally cautious about new technology trends without clear value. There are questions about whether social media use by hospital employees is a waste of time, or even worse, presents risks of violating HIPAA or leaking proprietary information. Hospital IT departments are concerned about security risks, such as the use of tinyurl.com, which can mask malicious Web sites. Privacy concerns, particularly the vulnerability of social media accounts, are also cited as a reason to avoid social media.

Current Trends in Social Media

Current trends to watch in social media in health care include:

• Managing a conversation;
• Engaging e-patients;
• Convergence with personal health records; and
• Social media for providers.

An important distinction in this two-way conversation is between medical advice and medical information. Hospitals and providers need to walk a fine line between giving specific medical advice in the relatively public forums of social media and providing more generalized medical information.

At the same time, there are ways to create a conversation with health care consumers. Sites like Medhelp.org have provided this kind of information using medical experts to answer patient-submitted questions in general terms. For instance, promoting wellness is a win-win; medical information relevant to many is provided without specific medical advice for a patient’s medical condition.

The rise of e-Patients creates many opportunities for engagement. E-Patients are defined as those “who are equipped, enabled, empowered and engaged in their health and health care decisions.” E-patients can provide feedback not only on improving hospital Web sites but also as participants in quality improvement within the health system.

PHRs and Online Communities

As the similarities between online patient communities (e.g., http://www.patientslikeme.com and http://curetogether.com) and PHRs begins to blur, will PHR information from providers be shared with online communities with the appropriate privacy settings so that the user can decide what to share?

Recording one’s medical condition online and abandoning privacy are part of the “Quantified Self” movement.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Project Health Design uses the concept of “Observations of Daily Living,” which extends the quantified self to behavioral self-observations. The next step in quantified self is self-monitoring, also known as home monitoring and telemedicine. Being quantified in terms of one’s weight, blood pressure or blood glucose provides another way of self-monitoring and participatory medicine.

Some are predicting that in the near future, multiple monitoring devices will be phased out to give way to connections with smart phones that will record and transmit medical monitoring data directly to a PHR. Innovators, such as Google Health and Microsoft Health Vault, as well as edgy startups, will provide the conduit from smart phones to the cloud.

Social Media for Providers

Finally, a relatively untapped resource is the use of social media among medical professionals. If anything, there have been negative stories about abuses and misuses of social media by health professionals and questions about the ethics of connecting with patients online.

Currently, few health care professionals see the value in social networking with other physicians, or they are not convinced that the benefits are worth the time. Although well over 90% of physicians use the Internet for continuing education, medical reference and e-mail with colleagues and a majority of doctors have a smart phone, taking the leap into online communities is less common.

Perhaps current business models dependent on financial incentives and industry sponsorship in exchange for private data have not engaged physicians. Could a different model that provides privacy and collaboration in the context of a community of similar interests demonstrate value and promote adoption?

Future Evolution of Social Media

Social media is here to stay in health care, but it will evolve quickly. Patient engagement will continue to characterize this change. Organizations will use social media tactically within their overall marketing and communications efforts — videos and mobile technology will likely dominate these approaches.

Online patient communities will expand and will become a rich source of information for others. Physicians and other health care providers will discover social media, which will have the potential of progressing medical research.

There may be regular news reports of privacy violations, dangerous misinformation and fraud promoted via social media, but these reports are not likely to stop a wave of innovation and conversation.

Source: iHealthBeat

On Monday, the American Medical Association endorsed several recommendations aimed at helping physicians maintain an appropriate and professional online presence, MedPage Today reports.

 AMA adopted the new policy during its House of Delegates meeting in San Diego. The policy encourages physicians to:

• Use privacy settings on social networking websites;
• Ensure that their online postings are accurate and professional;
• Recognize that posting inappropriate material online could jeopardize their reputations among colleagues and patients;
• Alert colleagues about online postings that could be considered unprofessional;
• Notify the appropriate authorities if a colleague posts material online that “significantly violates professional norms” (Walker, MedPage Today, 11/9);
• Uphold patient privacy and confidentiality standards in online environments (Goedert, Health Data Management, 11/9);
• Consider separating personal and professional content online; and
• Maintain appropriate physician-patient boundaries during online interactions (CMIO, 11/9).

Source: iHealthBeat

Please contact Pulse if you need or have any questions regarding social media. We would love to help!