A Golden Opportunity For Diabetic Eye Screenings

By Sal Casillas

New diabetic retinopathy diagnostic technology is helping primary care practices add eye screenings for 30 million diabetic patients and increasing HEDIS scores.

Diabetic retinopathy is the main cause of preventable blindness in the United States in people 20 to 65 years of age. Although an eye exam can lead to early detection and reduce the risk of severe vision loss by 90 percent, less than half of patients who are referred by their primary care providers to an eye specialist actually seek the required care. With very few primary care providers having the equipment or expertise to perform diabetic retinal exams (DREs), the challenge is how to enable physicians to provide digital retinal exams in a cost-effective way so that medical groups can expand their services and meet the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) requirement.

With 29.1 million Americans, or 9.3 percent of the population, living with diabetes in 2012, the role of telemedicine and diabetic retinopathy diagnostic solutions is increasingly important. Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems (IRIS) technology is one company evolving new ways to deliver healthcare by providing a successful solution to quickly detect potential abnormalities and sharing the results via a web-based platform to a screening specialist in the IRIS network. The end-to-end solution is empowering for the patient, practical for the physician and economical to reduce long-term health costs.

By adding the diabetic eye screenings to primary care practice and uncovering undiagnosed retinopathy in dozens of diabetic patients, IRIS creates a new revenue stream for primary care practices while enabling access to the highest quality retinal care available. In a case study with Harris Health Systems from Houston, Texas, the medical group reduced their cost by 70 percent, resulting in a $150 saving per exam over the previous method.

IRIS screening technology enables primary care medical groups to meet HEDIS outcomes within the comprehensive diabetic care quality measurement. Primary care providers confronted with a growing diabetic population with limited resources now have a solution to provide proper eye care while meeting testing requirements.

“We’re finding sight-threatening retinopathy in about 10 percent of the 100,000 diabetic patients examined with IRIS and 47 percent with some form of pathology,” said Patrick Cresson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at IRIS.

“We’re finding sight-threatening retinopathy in about 10 percent of the 100,000 diabetic patients examined with IRIS and 47 percent with some form of pathology,” said Patrick Cresson, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at IRIS.

“Without our diagnostic solution, most of these patients would have joined the 50 percent of diabetic patients that are referred to an eye specialist and never complete the exam. They would have fallen through the cracks and ended up at an eye specialist’s office once they lost vision in an eye, instead of being diagnosed early on when preventive measures can still help.”

A medical group can get started providing an IRIS retina test by ordering an IRIS screening device. Once the device has been connected to the IRIS web-based platform, a staff member can administer an eye screening directly with the patient. The device sends the patient’s retinal images to a screening specialist with areas of concern on the platform. The screening specialist returns the final report to the healthcare provider with recommendations.

Although pushback exists from a few physicians and ophthalmologists, Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems (IRIS) is gaining acceptance for its simple implementation and ability for the physician to delegate the exam to another staff member. The IRIS retina screening exam improved preventable vision loss for roughly 110,000 patients out of 118,518 examined in a recent study. In less than 10 minutes, and IRIS retina exam can be administered in a primary care physician’s office, and a diabetic patient can avoid vision loss. The value from telemedicine technology like IRIS is manifesting as better long-term health, lower healthcare cost and less suffering from disease and medical treatment.

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