Telehealth services are crucial in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak to ensure that patients receive the medical treatment they need while protecting their physicians’ health. Fortunately, telemedicine does not have to be difficult to adopt in your business.
If you’re considering launching telehealth programs amid the public health crisis, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you begin virtual visits that suit both your company and your patients’ medical needs.
Recognize How HIPAA And State Laws Affect Telemedicine
To preserve the security and privacy of any protected health information, you must use HIPAA-compliant video conferencing or telehealth platforms, as with other healthcare technology (PHI). Partnering with a telehealth platform provider familiar with HIPAA standards and signing a Business Associates Agreement is one of the best methods to verify your telehealth services comply with HIPAA (BAA).
State telemedicine legislation differs, but many policies are beginning to accept telehealth to complement traditional health care, particularly in the current healthcare environment.
Since the US Secretary of Health and Human Services issued a mandate to expand the use of telemedicine, government officials have been eliminating several regulatory and payment restrictions that previously impeded widespread use of telehealth during a public health emergency. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has already implemented several changes to expand virtual care access, including temporarily authorizing more than 80 telehealth-based services.
Determine How Your Practice Will Use Telehealth
It’s critical to have a clear vision and stated goals for how your clinic should use virtual care before you start implementing telehealth in your practice. You’ll stay on track for a successful telehealth launch if you know what your goals are and how you’ll track your progress toward them.
Telehealth is a broad term that refers to electronic information and telecommunication technologies to perform healthcare services, which can range from virtual chronic illness management via text messaging to giving patients email updates.
Telehealth, often known as telemedicine, is a term that refers to clinical treatment given by secure video. Despite this, telehealth is used in several ways in small offices and major health organizations. Some clinics, for example, employ a telemedicine app that patients must download. Others can send URLs that open in the user’s web browser straight away.
Some practitioners may opt to provide telehealth services just during specific hours and days of the week. Others may want to rely on remote care providers. In other cases, some practitioners may choose to offer virtual appointments at off-peak hours. .
Other points to consider are:
- Types of appointments
- Uses of pre-screening
- Follow-up on appointments
- Delivery of laboratory results
Fenway Health, a Federally Qualified Community Health Center in Massachusetts, was faced, like many other clinics, with creating a telehealth solution almost overnight. Patients’ ease of use was one of their top goals since it would lead to expanded access to care.
They achieved these objectives by anticipating and responding to patient demands with FAQ information and a dedicated internal technical group to assist healthcare teams. They were able to avoid redundant operations and automate the delivery of the virtual visit URL thanks to their cooperation with MediFusion. There was a favorable increase in virtual treatment among the underprivileged patient populations.
Select Champions To Lead The Telehealth Transformation
The engagement of your personnel, from the health IT department to health administration, is vital to the success of telehealth at your practice. Early involvement of your team will help everyone feel engaged in the success of telemedicine deployment. Since they will be able to assist that the rollout fits their business needs.
Find The Best Telehealth Partner And Platform For Your Needs
Once you’ve decided how you want to use telehealth in your clinic, conduct your research to identify which firm would be the greatest fit. It would help if you thought about topics like:
- Platforms that are HIPAA compliant
- Turn-key solutions allow for quick setup and rollout.
- Customization options for processes
- How they adhere to reimbursement guidelines
- Connecting to your medical records
- Ease-of-use
EHR Connectors Can Help You Streamline Your Telehealth Operations
While an out-of-the-box telemedicine solution can help your practice get started with virtual care, it’s critical to create bespoke workflows. That match your specific business objectives—as well as the needs of your patient population.
It allows you to expand your telehealth services beyond video conferencing. Allowing you to stay engaged with patients at any point in their treatment journey.
A tailored process, for example, may use simplified interfaces with health records to send appointment reminders ahead of time, reducing no-shows. You may also utilize encrypted text messaging to do patient outreach to particular groups of patients. Who are overdue for wellness visits, preventative screenings, and other healthcare services if you work with the proper partner.
It may customize messages, outreach, and processes depending on a range of EHR data. Such as patient language and insurance class, as well as comorbidities and age, thanks to extensive EHR connections.
After a virtual visit, EHR connectors ensure that visit notes and follow-up are instantly and securely synchronized to a patient’s medical records. They continue to receive medical treatment at your office, which provides continuity of care.
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Adelante Healthcare employed encrypted texting with Medifusion support to provide patients who had an office visit within the last 12 months the option of having a home screening kit, or mammography requisition sent straight to their house instead of receiving it in the office. We got answers from over 450 people for colorectal cancer screening in only one week.
Learn How To Utilize The Telehealth Platform With Your Team
Telehealth make your life simple and easy. That is why it is critical to employ basic technology that takes little equipment. And some easy steps to start with telehealth. Depending on their telehealth platform, most offices merely require a computer with audio and video capability to perform virtual consultations.
Consider how you’ll give professional training and encourage “virtual bedside manner” to create a customized, friendly, and comprehensive patient encounter.
They Should inform patients About Your Telehealth Services.
Use email, phone, social media, and in-office collateral for advertising your virtual options. Once your workforce is on board and your telehealth services are ready to go. More patients are using telehealth services than ever before to reduce their COVID-19 exposure. But it’s important to answer frequently asked questions ahead of time. Hence, patients know what to anticipate and how to interact with your office remotely.
