The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society Med Journal July 2019 Final 2 | Page 21
been paid by Medicaid, Blue Cross, Blue Shield,
United, etc.”
Making Telemedicine Work
in Your Organization
For implementation, Dr. Canon recommended a
dedicated team, good equipment and infrastructure,
and buy-in on both ends.
Stephen Canon, MD
but all services provided via telemedicine as long as
the service is comparable to the in-person service.
“Thanks to Act 887 and Act 203, there is
opportunity to conduct telemedicine in Arkansas
and to get paid for it,” he said. “There are some
inconsistencies with reimbursement, but we have
At ACH, telemedicine started by working with the
UAMS ANGELS program and prenatal consultations.
Following that example, Dr. Canon and his division
began implementing telemedicine. “We started with
post-op visits and then moved to pre-operative visits
and medical management,” he said. “Beyond that,
we have established relationships with regional
clinics through UAMS. That’s difficult to do because
you don’t have the same EMR, boss, financial billing
structure, etc., so there’s a lot that goes into that. It
took us a year to get up and running, but we started
in Texarkana and have expanded to Fort Smith. Our
hope is to eventually be able to provide service to all
the regional programs in the state. We’re not limited to
them, but we’re taking it a step at a time.
“We’ve been doing this for about eight years.
We’ve had about 500 encounters. Over the same
time frame, we’ve seen [in person] about 64,000
encounters. The harsh reality is, we’re not making a
huge dent in making it main-stream, but I think these
are the steps you have to go through to get there.”
As an example of someone going “all-in” with
telemedicine, Dr. Canon described Brent Lawless,
MD, a psychiatrist who recently made the decision
to join a full-time telemedicine group. “He will be
doing psychiatry for 15 states. In my own view, that’s
another way to really use the technology because
mixing it into your regular practice – like we do – is
challenging. It can be done, but in some ways, it might
be easier to do one or the other.”
In conclusion, Dr. Canon said, “It’s easy to draw
it up and think how it should be, but the reality is, it’s
windy and irregular, and there’s going to be some
unexpected turns. That’s the way it’s going to be for
telemedicine, but it will come. Patients who live far off
tell us that they appreciate the less time and distance.
The challenge is getting more access to more patients
in rural Arkansas. If I can keep them from driving the
entire day, I think that’s a worthy goal.”
For more information, email Dr. Canon at
[email protected].
AMS Night at the Travs
Doug Cahill; Amy Cahill, MD; Joe Stallings, MD; Brad Bibb, MD
Dennis Yelvington, MD; Chad Rodgers, MD
NUMBER 1
William Clark, III, MD; Stephen A. Imbeau, MD
The AMS Staff and Dr. and Mrs. George Conner
JULY 2019 • 21