Thursday, May 28, 2020

Published 6:21 AM by with 0 comment

COVID has brought about a Demand for Telehealth

The COVID pandemic has changed the way the world works, and healthcare has had to make adjustments per these changes. One of these adjustments is TeleHealth for remote consultations, or as some like to call them "virtual care".

TeleHealth has started becoming a mainstream option for healthcare. Providing TeleHealth is no longer just about convenience and choice, it is a necessity to protect the safety of both patients and providers of all ages.

Remote consultations visits allow patients to stay home to receive the care they need, avoiding the potential spread of the COVID-19 virus.

This is especially true for those considered high risk by the CDC, including people aged 65 years and older, people with chronic high-risk conditions or underlying medical conditions, those who smoke, among others.

Additionally, 
TeleHealth gives providers the flexibility to deliver care from their homes, providing them the same degree of protection from COVID. Providers are more willing to use technology solutions that are not yet integrated with their practice management workflow and EHR during the crisis than they were before.

Trading ideal workflows for rapidly deployed 
TeleHealth platforms, providers are quickly adapting to meet the needs of their patients in this crisis. We at TrueTeleHealth believe that in the long term, physicians will be more likely to continue with remote consults, aligning them with the way they practice medicine in person, including scheduling and reminders, charting and insurance, as well as payment processing.

At the policy level, Medicare, Medicaid, commercial payers, and states have all taken action to remove policy barriers to TeleHealth utilization to address this pandemic.

There have been changes in policy, including recommending 
TeleHealth when possible to help prevent the spread of a virus, allowing the originating site to be the patient's home and waiving cost-sharing for TeleHealth visits, including visits for mental care. These obviously will continue to evolve and are not necessarily permanent.

Now more than ever, patients are preferring to see their own doctors remotely. And there is a bigger choice on offer to the patients now, as it's now online. And so patients are increasingly choosing medical providers who offer Telehealth capabilities over those who don’t.

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