DMS Speech Pathology In-Practice Ancillary Service For Dysphagia
• DMS offers remote and on-site diagnostics and therapies for patients suffering from dysphagia.
• These therapies are a vital complementary service to the physician’s specific specialty and the various treatments the patient is receiving.
• DMS offers the Dysphagia Systems Test (DST) as a means to diagnose the patient’s swallowing issues. The DST utilizes a fiberoptic endoscope to gain a view of the swallow. The DST is how our SLP Dysphagia Specialists assess your patient’s risk of aspiration, choking, dehydration, malnutrition, reflux, penetration, weight loss, increased congestion, pneumonia, and failure to thrive.
• A comprehensive evaluation of the patient’s speech-language cognition is completed in order to develop a management plan that is functional, and can be operationalized at home.
• The DMS@Home TeleTherapy Portal allows patients to be seen from the safety of their own home
Why Dysphagia?
• Dysphagia is a major geriatric syndrome that is often under-diagnosed and undertreated. Patients suffering the effects of dysphagia exhibit a myriad of symptoms that affect their recovery from a primary disease, and can significantly alter their quality of life.
• Patients are often discharged from the hospital, nursing home, or home health care with only a minimum of care. These patients are returning to the community without being identified, educated, or rehabilitated properly, and possibly have a new diagnosis. These patients are urgently searching for somewhere to be treated effectively for their dysphagia.
• The patient who typically comes to a DMS In-Practice Partner has seen 7 physicians, and a few therapists, to attempt to treat their myriad of symptoms. We’ve put those pieces together.
• DMS provides a service for an underserved population of patients, and reaches those who need this therapy the most. Many of those patients are in your practice.
• Gastroenterology, Neurology, Pulmonology, ENT and Internal Medicine all have patients that can benefit from a coordination of care with a reasonable dysphagia management plan.
Why DMS?
• DMS is nationally known as the experts in dysphagia management, and has developed the tools to effectively identify and treat dysphagia across the country.
• The Dysphagia Systems Test (DST) is based on the Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES), which has been in the scope of practice for Speech Pathologists since 1992, and can be performed in your setting.
• The risk to the partnering practice is minimal, because DMS has been performing this service without issue for almost 30 years.
• Professional liability insurance in the amount of 3 million to 5 million dollars is held by DMS nationwide, and has HIPPA compliant and secure platforms to provide services across the country.
• The DMS@Home TeleTherapy Portal allows patients to be seen for initial diagnosis and follow up therapy from the safety of their own home with Medicare/Insurance allowing for full reimbursement in this medically fragile environment.
• DMS provides the experience, equipment, personnel, policies, programs, and social media package to get started. The practice provides an empty treatment room and the potential patients that need medically necessary interventions for dysphagia management.
• Practices are appropriately compensated for use of office space, billing services and scheduling assistance.
