While telemedicine has provided convenient, cost-effective solutions for people living in remote areas, dealing with debilitating conditions, or recovering at home from medical procedures has had a negative economic impact on traditional healthcare professionals who cannot reach their patients in a timely manner. As a healthcare provider, you may be understandably worried about losing your patients to telemedicine companies that have capitalized on this growing trend.
What can you do to compete with these high-volume operations? You can start by understanding your strengths. What do you have that they don’t? A robust, HIPAA complaint telemedicine solution can start you on your way to growing your business. Here is what you can offer when you elect to integrate telemedicine into your existing operation.
Virtual House Calls
You may have grumbled about upgrading to an EMR system and medical case management software. However, once you made the switch you probably realized the benefits inherent to implementing available technologies. The same is true of telemedicine.
With the right telemedicine solution in place you can revive the once-popular tradition of making house calls, now in a virtual capacity. This is not only convenient for patients, but it can benefit your practice in a variety of ways, too. Telemedicine will allow you to see more patients and accommodate those that have challenges with in office visits due to their remote location or health problems that limit mobility.
In some cases, you may be able to diagnose and treat via phone or video. You can help patients manage chronic ailments, recovery processes, or even preventive care regimens and you can make yourself available to offer second opinions to patients that are not satisfied with a primary consultation.
Just as you compared electronic medical records companies to find the one that would best suit your needs, your patients want to find the best possible telemedicine care. Receiving virtual house calls from an educated, experienced, and known healthcare provider is always going to trump the generic advice offered by unknown physicians at paid telemedicine services.
Trusted Care
Patients may resort to calling doctor or nurse help lines because they think there are no other convenient telehealth solutions available. If you offer telemedicine services to your patients they will almost certainly be more interested in hearing the opinions and advice of a trusted healthcare provider rather than an unknown provider with whom they have no relationship.