While TeleMedicine has been making solid advances over the last decade, the COVID-19 pandemic quickly pushed it to the forefront of new medical practice offerings. Even with that, there have always been many advantages to incorporating TeleMedicine into a practice’s array of operations, both from the providers’ and the patients’ points of view.
And even though avoidance of infection may not always be at the top of everyone’s mind in the future, you can certainly expect that those practices and patients who’ve experienced TeleMedicine have seen the benefits firsthand, and will be much more likely to use it again.
When COVID-19 hit, we spent almost all of our time over the next month adding various types of TeleMedicine notices to hundreds of our medical and dental practice customers’ websites. One thing that struck us was the wide variety of requests we received, and with that the realization that very few practices were really sure how to present this to their patients – and their patients most likely didn’t know what to expect.
Add to that the loss of the in-person contact that the practices had always relied on when processing a patient visit and you can see why so many of them felt a bit lost in this new way of interacting with their patients.
This just might be the perfect solution...
Although we don’t provide TeleMedicine services (there are more than enough vendors out there to choose from), we do provide a very useful interface between your practice, your TeleMedicine provider and your patients.
Patients typically have these questions when confronted with an upcoming TeleMedicine visit:
How do I sign up for TeleMedicine with my provider? - Do I have to call the office, or go through their Patient Portal, or send an email or a text, or...
- What if I’m a new patient?
- How do I give them my insurance information?
- How do they know what kind of treament I’m looking for?
- What happens next?
- Will the office call me, or email me, or text me?
- How do I begin a session?
- What web address do I go to to start?
- What happens next?
As you can imagine, when a patient feels unsure of how to proceed or what to expect, just giving up is always an option. Especially when many patients aren't all that comfortable with the online world to start with...
We make it as easy as it can be for your patients to enroll in your TeleMedicine system, and we provide a clear explanation of how things will work (usually in the exact words of your TeleMedicine provider). And once you engage with your patient by replying to the enrollment, they'll be much more likely to follow through with the actual TeleVisit.
How does it work?
Just place a link to our program (TeleMedEnrollment.com/yourpracticename) on your website, social media pages, billing statements, etc. We’ll create a three-page mini-website specific to your practice, where your current and prospective patients will see the following:
- Introduction Page (see an example here)
- Welcome to your practice’s TeleMedicine system
- Brief intro to the enrollment process
- Link to the TeleMedicine Enrollment form
- TeleMedicine Enrollment form (see an example here) - information requested:
- Patient name and date of birth
- Select Current vs. New Patient status
- If a current patient, regular Provider name is requested
- If a new patient, a link to your new patient forms or patient portal is displayed
- Upload area to attach insurance card images
- Free text area to describe the reason for the visit
- Select preferred method of practice’s response - Text / Email / Phone
- Enter phone number or email address
- Enter phone number or email address
- Confirmation Page (see an example here)
- Confirmation of successful enrollment submittal
- Listing of TeleVisit web address for each provider in your practice
- Inclusion of your TeleMedicine provider’s instructions
Upon submittal of the TeleMedicine Enrollment form a designated staff person in your practice will receive an immediate email notification containing a link to our HIPAA-compliant secure server. All submitted forms are available for 30 days, display all patient-entered information, and are presented as a PDF that can be forwarded to the provider and to others in the practice.