Telemedicine Is Not Just For Primary Care Physicians
- Updated on: 2020-07-22
- Read original article here
Telemedicine and virtual doctor visits have become more popular ever since COVID-19 began exploding across America, and more specialties are now adopting the practice. We’ve been offering virtual visits for four months now, and we’ve really enjoyed connecting with patients in a safe and effective way. Obviously virtual visits are convenient for the patient, but they also offer a number of different benefits for providers and others in your community. We explore those shared benefits in today’s blog.
Long-Reaching Benefits Of Virtual Doctor Visits
When it comes to the benefits of virtual doctor visits, there’s more to it than the fact that as long as you keep the camera above your waist, you don’t need to put pants on. But seriously, these virtual visits are beneficial for a number of reasons outside of the direct benefits you’ll see as a patient. Telemedicine consultations also:
Allow For Better Community Care – The process of coming into a clinic, checking in, being called back from the waiting room, visiting with a specialist, and getting a diagnosis and treatment plan is a bit time consuming. For some patients, this process is absolutely necessary, but research shows that in some specialties, virtual visits could have the potential to replace roughly 70 percent of in-person visits. This frees up in office visits for patients who need it the most. If you need to get in to see a specialist for a serious condition, you’d be happier if that was easier to do so because others opted for a virtual visit. These telemedicine options act as a triage system, allowing those who need to be seen in person more flexibility to see a specialist sooner.
Care Must Go On – Foot problems and larger health issues don’t stop just because the coronavirus is interfering with daily life, so don’t ignore small problems right now. If that bunion is getting out of control, or you haven’t been screened for conditions appropriate for your age, consider setting up a virtual visit. The sooner treatment begins, the better success rates tend to be. Virtual visits allow us to continue preventative care in the time of COVID.
Coronavirus Risk Mitigation – Everybody in the community is better off if we can reduce the number of people we come into contact with every day that are outside of our normal circle. By setting up a virtual visit, you’re not interacting in close proximity with any members of our care team and any people you may encounter on your way to and from the clinic. If everyone works to cut down their person-to-person contact, we can greatly reduce the COVID numbers.
More Seen – Finally, we can provide care to more individuals through virtual visits. Aside from expanding our reach geographically, we can actually fit patients into openings in our day and see more people. If a patient cancels on the day of an appointment, we’re out an hour or so of time. But now with virtual visits, we can fit one or two patients into that cancelled time slot, allowing us to help more people throughout the day. The more patients we can see, the more people we can help.
