In generations past, doctors provided care to their patients by traveling directly to their homes. Although the old-school house call has largely gone by the wayside, current technological innovations have opened the door for an exciting new treatment method that incorporates the best aspects of the medicine of yesteryear. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to evolve, telehealth appears to be the way of the future, to the benefit of both physicians and their patients.
What is telehealth?
Simply put, telemedicine uses digital technology and the internet to connect patients with their doctors. In the numerous instances when in-person sessions are unsafe, impractical, or burdensome, telemedicine provides a highly viable alternative. Whether someone needs to see a general practitioner or a specialist, the consultation can easily be carried out either over the phone or via a teleconferencing platform such as Zoom.
In many cases, practitioners invest in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) arrangement with a third-party provider to meet their telemedicine needs. This offers them HIPAA compliance, affordability, security, and ease of use. The intuitive subscription arrangement means that costs can be kept low and are spread evenly over time, thus making telehealth financially accessible even to smaller practices.
Telemedicine expands the scope of your business.
Of course, your primary mission as a physician or psychologist is to care for the medical or psychological needs of your patients, respectively. Nonetheless, you should never forget that this goal can only be achieved if your practice is run smoothly, efficiently, and even innovatively. Particularly in this age of COVID-19, giving your patients the option to meet with you virtually may be the best way to monitor their health and check up on how their care is progressing.
Thanks to telemedicine, you can give your patients maximum say in when, where, and how to meet with you. If you choose to do so, you even have the option of expanding your hours, offering to chat with patients on the weekend or during the evening. Best of all, you won’t be tied down to your physical office since the platform allows you to interact with patients from anywhere.
Telemedicine heightens patient engagement.
Increasingly, consumers of all types demand to be immersed in an experience. This is true whether they are shopping for jewelry or seeing their physician. Telehealth is ideally suited to meeting people literally right where they are.
As a result, you and your staff are in the perfect position to have regular interactions with your clients. At these visits, you can teach and review skills, observe the appearance of injuries, and even take stock of a patient’s balance, wound care regimen, or remote cardiac measurements. In the end, this ongoing virtual conversation can lead to a positive connection that promotes accountability and encourages patients to remain in touch throughout all the stages of their health journey.
Telemedicine can broaden your customer base.
Whether isolation happens because of advanced age, as the result of a pandemic, or due to geography, the fact is that there is a significant number of patients who have a hard time traveling to your office. Today’s telehealth platforms are easy for most people to use, often requiring only a standard telephone. Thanks to these innovations, you can markedly reduce the number of in-person visits a patient attends without simultaneously compromising quality of care.
Telemedicine can streamline the efficiency of your practice.
Allowing patients to visit with you virtually removes many roadblocks. Perhaps most notably, people tend to be more prompt in keeping the set appointment time since there is no travel involved. That means that you as the practitioner can be much more efficient in the scheduling of visits as well as the triaging of need. When the session is completed, you and your staff will have a secure report of everything that transpired, leading to better record-keeping and heightened patient accountability.
Even the checkout process can be speedier and more secure. The telemedicine platform you use has everything you need to accept payments over the phone, including a virtual terminal that functions as a secure credit card reader. Many practitioners choose to handle the financial end of the transaction before the actual conference takes place, thereby ensuring that concerns about payment do not distract from the session itself.
Telemedicine can lead to higher profits.
When you see patients virtually, you can generally fit more appointments into a day without sacrificing the quality of the care you give. Furthermore, it is legal and acceptable to bill for no-shows. You may even decide to extend your hours to allow for an expanded number of virtual visits on evenings or weekends, each of which can also be billed.
Telemedicine increases patient satisfaction by lowering the costs they must pay.
In order to visit a doctor’s office, patients incur numerous expenses: gas, parking, child-care, and lost wages, among others. When the session is digital, many of these expenses are cut down or disappear altogether. The result is reduced stress, lower costs, greater compliance, and an overall higher level of satisfaction.
Telemedicine assists in effective triaging.
When you can hear and see a patient over a telehealth platform, you are in an excellent position to determine how acute their current needs are. You can, for example, more accurately gauge whether the person needs to immediately go to an urgent care or emergency facility, or if the situation can be stabilized with medication and a follow-up virtual visit. Ultimately, this means that only those who truly require emergency care go to the ER while other patients are not forced to undergo the additional stress and expense.
Telemedicine reduces no-shows.
Many patients simply fail to attend their medical appointments, particularly when it comes to routine follow-up visits. If they are feeling relatively well, they frequently have a hard time justifying the time and travel necessary to come to an in-person appointment. That means wasted time and lost revenue for you and a lowering of the standard of care for your patient. By contrast, people are much more likely to honor a commitment that they have made if it can be done from the comfort of their own home in a matter of a few minutes.
Telemedicine keeps data secure.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) led to the creation of standards that protect patients’ sensitive health data from being disclosed without their knowledge or consent. Even though a virtual visit is conducted digitally, all HIPAA requirements remain in place to ensure convenience and efficiency without sacrificing data confidentiality and integrity.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a springboard that has sent the popularity and adoption of telemedicine into the stratosphere. If you run a medical practice of any size, you can markedly increase the flexibility and quality of services you provide to your patients by incorporating virtual visits into your offerings. If you have not already done so, now more than ever, it’s in your best interests to join the digital medical revolution!
