The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted every industry in the world and healthcare is no exception to that. Primary care practices are significantly disrupted as office visits and revenues seen large declined as primary care physicians and patients alike fear in-person visits may increase their risks of contracting the virus. However, telemedicine has emerged as a savior for many practices that ensure remote patient treatment.
Telemedicine is useful for providing healthcare services and treatment with the help of technology to remote patients. Moreover, it enables engagement between patients and providers without the need for physical visits that lead to the rising use of telemedicine by primary care practices.
Before the pandemic, people did not consider telemedicine to be as effective as getting a treatment done physically but with the rising restrictions and conditions of the pandemic, telemedicine came out as a savior for people in need of primary care.
The demand for doctors and physicians increased to mounting levels which was the reason many patients who were in dire need of treatment could not get attention when required. Telemedicine was of great help in decreasing the unmatched demand of primary care physicians for patients and it helped patients to change their perspective towards telehealth and they were able to recognize advantages offered by telemedicine.
Indeed, the US has seen the adoption of telemedicine by primary care practices as reimbursement of providers’ telehealth visits are the same as in-person visits. Following are a few tips to rise telemedicine usage in your practice.
Start with Telemedicine
Many primary care practices are adopting telemedicine depending on many factors, including clinicians’ comfort with technology, clinical tolerance and triage rules for no-touch encounters, state regulations, and more. However, it is the need for an hour that every primary care practice should begin experimenting with telemedicine in specific ways that make sense for them.
You should do get started with telehealth it will increasingly be a mainstream medium and more patients will come to expect it.
Educate your staff
You should educate your staff about telemedicine provide them some training as many primary care practices avoid the resources of an information technology team. Your staff from the office manager to medical assistants must have the training for technology to work.
Various telemedicine activities like activating an account through email, starting, and joining a telehealth meeting, and preparing a patient for a visit are just a handful of basic tasks your staff should be trained to do that contribute to the successful integration of telehealth.
Educate and encourage patients to use telehealth
Most of the patients who are not familiar with technology may represent a roadblock for the adoption of telemedicine while others resist telemedicine simply because no one has explained to them why it’s so important and the benefits it can hold for them.
To fill the gap about awareness of telehealth in primary care you should put efforts to educate and communicate to your patients by slowly walking patients through the process of performing important functions on the telemedicine app. Moreover, you can provide some friendly coaching to your patients so that they don’t feel lost or abandoned.
Behavioral health care
The primary care provider (PCP) can conduct a screening with the help of telehealth to decide if the patient may benefit from behavioral health care. After the results of the screening test, the patient can be referring to a mental health professional via telehealth.
Collaborative Care is both an in-person and virtual model that allows PCP practices to offer behavioral health services cost-effectively by utilizing a psychiatrist as a “consultant” to the practice as opposed to hiring a full-time psychiatrist.
Collaborative Care Model services can be offered via telehealth as well as all major insurance company offers reimbursement for primary care providers for delivering Collaborative Care.
When PCPs provide behavioral health treatment as an “extension” of the primary care service offerings then more patients are willing to accept the care they need.
In conclusion, adopting telemedicine for consultative patient visits offers primary care a path toward restoring patient volume and hope for a post-pandemic future. If you are using telemedicine and looking for the medical billing company to outsource billing, then you can get in touch with us.
