Phrazer/Kitsune performs vital, reimbursable community health services in a more consistent, accurate, and inclusive manner. Better healthcare, new revenue from a light implementation.
What is SBIRT?
SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment) is a reimbursable ACA program aimed at public health cost reduction. Screening and early intervention is proven to help identify, reduce, and prevent substance use disorders and assist in avoidance for people at risk for developing substance use disorders. It has been adapted for use in primary care settings, hospital emergency settings as well as other community settings. Screening large numbers of individuals offers the possibility for early intervention, before more severe consequences occur.
The importance of integrating SBIRT into the clinical setting is becoming increasingly important due to widespread substance use (and the Opioid crisis) in the United States. According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA 20016), “an estimated 1.5 percent of adults aged 18 or older in 2016 (3.6 million adults) received any substance use treatment in the past year, and 0.9 percent (2.1 million adults) received treatment at a specialty facility...” See the full survey here
Why is SBIRT Important?
Unhealthy and unsafe alcohol and drug use are major preventable public health problems resulting in more than 100,000 deaths each year. The costs to society are more than $600 billion annually. Effects of unhealthy and unsafe alcohol and drug use have far-reaching implications for the individual, family, workplace, community, and the health care system.
Screening early and often can dramatically improve public health and reduce overall costs of care. Research shows that Brief Interventions:
• Are low cost and effective
• Are most effective among persons with less severe problems
• Are feasible and highly effective components of an overall public health approach to reducing alcohol and substance misuse
The Novel Phrazer/Kitsune SBIRT+
Phrazer/Kitsune programs provide three or more vital and validated health screeners into an organized CITE package (any language, literacy, culture, etc) called SBIRT+. This consist of the following:
GeaCom’s Approach to Operationalize SBIRT+
Start by leveraging the most under-utilized resource in medicine, the patient! By introducing Phrazer/Kitsune to the patient, we transform frustrating wait time into time well-used. By performing the above CITE screeners in the waitroom or once the patient is roomed the provider can know if there are any flagged items (i.e. high risk alcohol use) before even seeing the patient. The patient doesn’t need training to use Phrazer and gets to interact in their preferred language.
This is a reimbursable process that Phrazer/Kitsune streamlines, enabling the care team to provide holistic care.
How this benefits care practices?
The Phrazer/Kitsune health screeners enable practices to provide better care to the patients they serve and these are typically reimbursable and now easier than ever to initiate. Phrazer/Kitsune performs the heavy lifting and screens patients that may be at risk and in turn provides care systems with a wealth of information at no additional time cost.
How much reimbursement is available?
This is where things can get interesting due to the reimbursement process itself. Depending upon many factors, including Insurance type (medicare, medicaid, private), location (varies slightly by state) and most importantly the patient’s responses reimbursements can be between $30 and $100+.
