Televisits are becoming ubiquitous. Facilitated by telemedicine software, they’re making health care accessible across the U.S. The modern health care paradigm is expanding to include video-based care that bolsters care delivery while reducing overall costs and increasing revenues. So what do you need to know about televisits?

Compare Top Telehealth Software Leaders

What This Article Covers:

• What Is a Televisit?
• Setting up a Call
• Benefits
• Limitations
• Next Steps

What Is a Televisit?

A televisit is a safe and secure way for medical professionals and patients to connect through phone, video chat and telecommunications equipment. Several applications, such as live HIPAA-compliant video conferencing solutions, mobile health apps, remote patient monitoring tools, and store-and-forward imaging, play a vital role in connecting patients and doctors online.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought televisits into the limelight. With stay-at-home mandates, health care industries adopted online channels to reduce in-office visits and provide care to patients remotely. Since then, televisits and other telehealth and telemedicine practices have been proliferating across several care specialties.

Televisits allow clinics to provide emergency care options for patients through video calls. In addition, both parties can share information and files over file transfer apps. Televisit software allows doctors to evaluate and treat patients anywhere.

They enable clinics to reach patients far away without convincing them to travel. Patients can book appointments through patient portals according to their convenience.

In addition, the applications that support televisits also provide appointment scheduling and cancellation features. Patients can switch on laptops, connect to the clinic over video call and meet doctors without even having to get out the door.

Televisits are closely related to telehealth. While televisits only support clinical services such as appointments, telehealth supports non-clinical services such as training modules for new medical professionals.

Compare Top Telehealth Software Leaders

Setting up a Call

Televisits are a convenient medium for patients to connect with doctors. However, setting up a televisit call with a patient can be tricky. Therefore, send the following steps to patients before setting up a call.

• Instruct patients to log in to the patient portal with the correct username and password.
• Provide patients with a list of available dates and times for appointments.
• Confirm the appointment and send a list of must-dos for patients before joining the call.
• Ask patients to arrive early and login into their accounts from the confirmation link sent in the email.
• Collect basic information about patients’ ages, health conditions and more with pre-visit questionnaires.
• Redirect patients to a virtual waiting room once they’ve completed pre-visit forms.
• Begin the video consultation as soon as you or the attending physician and the patient are ready.

Primary Benefits

Televisits are here to stay, and they’re likely to grow, ushering in a new age of health care. Today, patients can leverage televisit services to access the best care possible from their homes.

Further, they reduce overall care costs, optimize clinical workflows and offer better and more secure file storage options. According to HIPAA guidelines, every U.S. clinic must ensure patients’ confidential data is safe.

Increase Comfort and Convenience

Televists allow clinics to connect with patients through telecommunications equipment such as laptops, mobile phones and tablets. They provide patients the much-needed comfort of getting in touch with doctors from their living rooms.

They’re making health care convenient for physically ill patients who require additional support to visit a doctor’s clinic. With televisit software, they can constantly stay in touch with doctors and medical professionals throughout the day.

They also help patients include appointments in their busy schedules and help them regularly plan treatments.

Lower Costs

With reduced travel, health care costs can come down for patients and medical professionals. Medical workers can leverage cloud-based solutions to work remotely and patients can schedule and attend appointments from home.

Further, technologies, such as the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), allow clinicians to record patient health statuses remotely, reducing the times they need to visit the clinic.

Enhance Assessments

Another benefit telemedicine provides is enabling doctors to see and observe patients in a home environment. Doctors can extract important clues from a patient’s behavior at home rather than at the clinic.

With the required data, doctors can provide better diagnoses and suggest better non-medicinal practices that will help optimize the patient’s health outcome.

Specialty therapists such as mental health therapists opt for televisits to learn more about a patient’s living conditions.

Reach More Clients

As mentioned above, televisits improve access to care for patients with physical inabilities, financial constraints and other challenges. Online access to care helps therapists reach out to rural and distant areas that require more exposure to care facilities.

Widening the customer base is an effective business strategy for every clinic. Telvisits provide the opportunity to connect to your patients while they’re overseas through video calls. They also boost the overall revenue stream as doctors can attend to more patients effectively.

Innovate Physical Therapy

Traditionally, physical therapy required a physical location where therapists and medical workers showed patients different exercises and body part movements. With televisits, or telehealth physical therapy, therapists can set up a video stream with patients and show them the exercises on camera.

Patients can try out exercises while therapists monitor and correct steps. On-screen assessments are doable on video calls, and therapists can also provide required exercise instructions in real time.

Improve Patient Outcomes

Televisits can reduce infections as patients don’t have to travel to clinics for every minor symptom but can contact their doctors online. They also help medical staff follow up with patients regularly.

This personalized touch helps patients adhere to care plans strictly while getting in touch with medical staff quickly in case of a need. With regular adherence to medicines and care plans, patient outcomes can improve manifold.

Compare Top Telemedicine Software Leaders

Limitations

Although televisits bring a myriad of advantages to the table, they’re not without limitations. Televisits, telemedicine and telehealth have several gray areas that medical providers, insurance makers and patients are aware of.

While televisits are likely to expand over the coming years, technological and practical limitations will also come into the picture.

Expensive Technology

Clinics and hospitals adopting televisit software need to pay upfront costs. A new solution may require extended time and effort from your implementing team. Your staff needs proper training to use the solution correctly. However, most health care institutions see a good ROI over time.

Fewer Face-to-Face Meetings

One significant disadvantage of televisits is that they can reduce face-to-face consultations between doctors and patients. This can potentially lead to mismanagement and wrong medication prescriptions by doctors. Televisits are beneficial for both parties, however, for some health conditions, face-to-face appointments are necessary.

Ill-defined Policies

Medical insurance and policies differ from state to state in the U.S. With newer technologies taking center stage, existing policies require changes. This ends up as a challenge in matters of keeping up with and adhering to new health care laws and privacy protection rules.

At-risk Data

With televisits, every file, prescription and medical document is transferred online. A centralized repository stores all the documents containing confidential information. This opens the door for hackers to cause security breaches and steal data. Online phishing and data theft are one of the most common disadvantages of televisits.

Compare Top Telehealth Software Leaders

Next Steps

Televisits are here to stay. They make medicine and care accessible to a larger audience. Patients can schedule appointments without hassle and get in touch with the doctor of their choosing. In addition, televisits can also reduce travel time and cost, allowing patients to easily incorporate appointments into daily life.

Are you prepared to provide televisit services to patients? Purchasing the right software to provide care online is crucial. Patient scheduling software, EHRs and EMRs are some applications that vendors may offer add-on televisit modules or integrations for, so check with the companies that supply your existing systems.

What benefits can using televisits provide your practice? Let us know in the comments.