As the popularity of Telehealth services grows, there are always questions from Doctors about whether it is worth adopting into their clinic.
Here are 8 key reasons Doctors are choosing to offer Telehealth to patients in their clinic:
1) More flexibility of office hours
Many doctors feel chained to their consult rooms. The need to be consulting with 4 patients per hour, 7-9 hours a day can take a toll.
The ability to spend some time in different environments, such as a home office, can reduce the stress and burden for doctors. Telehealth offers doctors a chance to choose an environment to conduct their remote consultations in. All that is needed is a cell phone or internet connection and the clinic is online and ready to go.
2) Less Patients in waiting rooms
The experience of an overfilled waiting room is not pleasant. Patients don’t feel happy sitting and waiting around in the presence of other sick people.
For doctors the experience may be even more stressful. Knowing that there is no reprieve because the waiting room is full can be incredibly exhausting. Even taking small breaks becomes a guilty pleasure when doctors know that there are several people still waiting in the front of the clinic.
3) Less patient non-compliance
Research has shown that consistent follow-up with patients through virtual communication can dramatically reduce the amount of non-compliance. Diligent follow-up with patients drives better compliance with treatment plans and can mitigate the symptoms of common conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
When Telehealth is used as a form of patient revisit for follow up appointments, the results are just as effective. Simple text, email or video call appointments can be used in place of asking patients to revisit the clinic.
4) More Healthcare Services available for market
Many doctors feel stifled by the lack of ability to be entrepreneurial. They want to run their clinic similar to other service businesses, by adding new services.
With the adoption of Telehealth in a clinic, it is much easier to offer a valuable variation on the typical office visit. And the affordability factor for patients is also appealing. Most Telehealth visits range in cost from $25 – $55 depending on the doctor.
5) New potential revenue streams
The flip side of a new option for patients is a new revenue stream for doctors. Keeping the majority of the fees billed through Telehealth is a completely different model than the typical insurance claim model.
With the increase of 5 Telehealth calls a day, 5 days a week, a doctor can potentially add $3500 in monthly revenue.
6) Low overhead and setup costs
Most Telehealth services cost less than $150 per month to run. Some will bill a percentage of revenue or even offer a small volume of free calls to patients. Whichever option is chosen, it is clear that the opportunity to test the service without the need for extensive overhear is an appealing factor.
7) Opportunity for Fee for service and Concierge Medicine
Adding a Telehealth service gives doctors a low cost, low-commitment way to begin intruding fee for service options to the clinic. Rather than have different rates for patients based on cash or insurance, it can be a wise idea to begin only offering fee-for-service for Telehealth appointments initially.
This gives the patients who are willing to pay the opportunity to experience the benefits of the on-demand, concierge style doctor services. This could then potentially be expanded into a more robust service with a monthly retainer that includes Telehealth access at a later date.
8) Removing Insurance dependence
The final benefit is one that many doctors dream about. The ability to run a clinic that is not dependent on insurance claims is very appealing.
Through the fee-for-service model, the ability to do less insurance based patient care can finally be an option. Due to the low overhead of Telehealth, it can be tested with low risk and can be increased up to the point each doctor feels is comfortable.
