Billings Clinic, DispatchHealth announce at-home care collaboration

DENVER and BILLINGS, Mont., April 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- DispatchHealth, the nation's first comprehensive in-home medical care provider, and Billings Clinic, Montana's largest health care organization, today announced a new collaboration to provide patients on-demand, in-home medical care. The innovative collaboration will bring acute care to patients in the Billings area who often struggle with access to care when they need it. DispatchHealth's complete platform delivers, provides, and coordinates medical care to patients in their homes while Billings Clinic brings a deep and extensive knowledge and history of patient care needs throughout the region.

Patients can request DispatchHealth's acute medical care for a wide range of injuries and illnesses, including viral infections, COPD exacerbations, congestive heart failure and more. To request care, patients can call (406) 998-6299 or visit DispatchHealth.com or Billings Clinic without a referral. Once requested, an emergency care-trained DispatchHealth medical team arrives at the patient's home equipped with the necessary tools and treatments to treat the patient in the home, including on-site diagnostics and a CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act)-certified lab. DispatchHealth is open seven days a week, 365 days a year, including holidays.

"At Billings Clinic we believe that the best way to provide effective health care is to keep it local. Our collaboration with DispatchHealth is another step forward towards innovative care models to meet patients' care needs," said Mary Albers, Billings Clinic Chief Operating Officer.  "After all, what is more local than high-acuity care in a patient's home? With DispatchHealth, we look forward to serving our community in new and vital ways by meeting our patients where they are and where they want to receive care, in their homes."

"Health care is rapidly changing and DispatchHealth's proven value-based approach to care empowers health systems to go beyond traditional care settings," said Dr. Mark Prather, CEO and co-founder of DispatchHealth. "We are pleased to partner with Billings Clinic to bring high-quality care to patients by lowering the barriers of healthcare access with the proven convenience of effective care in the home."

This collaborative model aims to help keep people at home when an ED visit or hospitalization can be avoided, and a clinic visit is not possible. DispatchHealth's services are available to all patients in the Billings community. For Billings Clinic patients, care is coordinated by DispatchHealth with the Billings Clinic primary care team, care managers and other Billings Clinic team members. This service keeps care teams closely involved in the care of patients who choose to receive care from Billings Clinic and DispatchHealth. Goals of this collaboration include:

• Provide patients with another non-emergency care option
• Create more access to post-acute care
• Reduce non-emergency visits to the ED
• Improve health outcomes and achieve industry-leading patient satisfaction scores by meeting patients where they are
• Reduce healthcare costs for some patients by decreasing non-emergent trips to the ED
• Provide better transitional care post discharge

Since its founding, DispatchHealth has scaled its system of care to offer complex home-based medical care, including mobile imaging. At its current growth rate, DispatchHealth will generate more than $2B in medical cost savings by 2023. The partnership between DispatchHealth and Billings Clinic provides patients excellent high-acuity care in the comfort of their own homes, while reducing preventable hospital readmissions and lowering medical costs.

People should continue to call 911 if they experience chest pain or other signs of a heart attack, signs of a stroke, severe bleeding, serious injury, suicidal thoughts, or actions or if the patient has lost consciousness.

DispatchHealth brings the power of the hospital to the comfort of the home. DispatchHealth is building the world's largest in-home care system and offers on-demand acute care and an advanced level of medical care for people of all ages in the comfort of their own homes. DispatchHealth's emergency medicine and internal medicine trained medical teams are equipped with all the tools necessary to treat common to complex injuries and illnesses. DispatchHealth works closely with payers, providers, health systems, EMS, employer groups and others to deliver care in the home to reduce unnecessary emergency room visits, hospital stays and readmissions. Acute Care medical teams are available seven days a week, evenings and holidays and can be requested online or a quick phone call. DispatchHealth is partnered with most major insurance companies. For more information, visit DispatchHealth.com

Billings Clinic is Montana's largest health system, serving Montana, Wyoming and the western Dakotas. A not-for-profit organization led by a physician CEO, Billings Clinic is governed by a board of community members and physicians. At its core, Billings Clinic is a physician-led, integrated multispecialty group practice with a 304-bed hospital and Level II trauma center. Billings Clinic has more than 4,700 employees, including nearly 600 physicians and advanced practitioners offering more than 80 specialties. Billings Clinic is the first Magnet-designated health care organization in Montana and a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. More information can be found at www.billingsclinic.com.

SOURCE DispatchHealth