Jun 24, 2021 12:54:14 PM | 6 Min Read

What Does Telehealth Mean?

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Vitel Health
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What Does Telehealth Mean?

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed virtual visits to the forefront of medical service. Never before have we seen such a demand for remote medical consultations, and not just out of preference but out of necessity. As the vaccines are administered and society starts to open back up, however, the demand for virtual medicine is only increasing.

You might be considering virtual medicine, either as an addition to your current office or creating an entirely online practice. Telehealth includes everything needed to make your virtual office work efficiently. It's the support, the infrastructure, and the connections you need to create a thriving virtual medical practice.

What is Telehealth?

Consider the average doctor's office and everything that goes into making it successful. You need clerical staff for billing and patient records, as well as credentialing services to make sure your doctors are who they say they are, and medical suppliers to make sure you're stocked up.

Like with a physical practice, you will still need all of these services, but tailored to a digital space. Telehealth is a culmination of all the connections and services you need to run a thriving practice virtually.

It's the communication between different parts of the healthcare industry as they interface online, including:

  • Patient intake and data gathering
  • Scheduling and arranging patient visits
  • Patient billing and reminders
  • Marketing
  • Employment, credentialing, and other staff-related activity
  • Medical supply ordering and tracking
  • Referrals to specialists
  • Prescription management
  • Self-reporting from chronic pain/care patients

When you break down the sheer amount of indirect work that goes on in your office, it is difficult to imagine an online practice without a robust and comprehensive telehealth platform. ViTel works tirelessly to integrate and streamline the processes that are needed to deliver remote care using telehealth to keep patients at the forefront of your practice’s care.

While your physical office routine functions smoothly, an online presence requires more focused systems to keep you on track. Additionally, a well-developed telehealth platform can make the entire process of serving an online community faster and easier. For instance, credentialing through ViTel is faster, easier, and more accurate than human-driven verification processes, allowing you to expand your practice quickly and efficiently using the latest technology.

While virtual medicine is your goal, telehealth is the scaffolding on which you build that virtual practice.

Why Telehealth Matters

You could run your practice remotely with webcams and a very bare-bones structure, but it would be:

  • Overwhelming and impractical
  • Not streamlined and eventually burdensome

A powerful telehealth platform allows you to seamlessly integrate each aspect of your practice, keeping your patients happy and your office humming. Being able to bill patients, handle  remote patient intake, send referrals to specialists, order DME or schedule tests, and every other aspect of your medical practice within the same platform is truly empowering . When you choose a partner that makes the mundane aspects of your work easier, you have more time to do what you love - see and help patients.

Chronic Care Management

Telehealth services allow you to interface with clients much faster than traditional visits. This speed makes it easier to care for clients with chronic conditions like diabetes, mental health concerns, or pain management needs. A telehealth platform makes sending patients for therapy or to specialists much simpler, and makes changing the patient’s treatment plan  quick and easy with expanded patient access seeing them remotely via telehealth. . 

You can also get constant feedback days ahead of your virtual visits with your patients. Rather than having your patients sit in a waiting room and spending time having them recount their experience since the last visit, you can have that information available  using remote patient monitoring seeing your patient’s vitals in real-time. Being able to evaluate their situation well before the patient’s appointment,  appointments are faster, more focused, and makes their care simply better.

Faster Credentialing & Intake

ViTel's AI-driven data gathering makes credentialing new doctors faster and more reliable than human-driven methods. Additionally, our machine learning patient intake forms are easier and can be done in advance of your appointments. The program will even assist in diagnosing your patients based on their responses recorded during intake, helping you cut down on preliminary data gathering at each appointment.

Again, a robust telehealth platform simply makes each step of your job easier, and takes the burden of office management off your shoulders.

Find a Telehealth Platform that Works for You

Telehealth services can help you build a new virtual practice or expand your current virtual healthcare services. Want to explore the new physician “Gig” economy. ViTel delivers a telehealth job board for physicians looking for full-time, part-time, or shift work. ViTel delivers platforms for PCPs/general health, Workers’ Compensation, ERs & Urgent Care, Remote Patient Monitoring, Chronic Care Management, and Telepsych. 

If you're even considering stepping into the world of virtual medicine, consider a ViTel demo. We can show you how our platform makes each step of the patient process easier and better for you and your patients. You'll be able to see more clients, work the hours you want to work, and make the lives of your patients easier by reducing their commute to see you in person. ViTel can determine where weak points in your process are, suggest equipment, and connect you with billing and referral solutions that optimize your time.

Every step of the way, we are looking for new methods to improve the speed with which patients are seen and start to feel better. You know you prefer working with patients to doing mundane, tedious office work. Let us show you how ViTel can give you more time to do what you love.

Topics: Telehealth

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