Telemedicine may be something as simple as x-ray images being electronically forwarded to a specialist for consultation without the patient having to visit the specialist in person. Or it may be as advanced as an emergency specialist virtually visiting a patient in an emergency department through the use of a remote camera system. And there are many other methods of telemedicine, including smartphone apps, teleconferencing, and phone consultations.
The use of telemedicine is gradually expanding. The barriers are not technological, but mostly legal. In the United States, all 50 states have different physician licensure requirements, and the concept of a physician in one state remotely working with a patient across state lines is one that is new, and for which legislation doesn’t yet account. But lawmakers and telemedicine organizations are developing solutions that will allow telemedicine to expand. Here are 7 reasons to be optimistic about the advancement and expansion of telemedicine.
- Your Relationship With Your Doctor Could Improve
Having a strong, continuing relationship with your physician is important to maintaining good health and dealing effectively with health problems. When telemedicine allows people to work more easily with doctors they like and with whom they have strong rapport, the doctor-patient relationship is strengthened, allowing for better consistency of care.
- Telemedicine Offers a Quantum Leap in Convenience
It’s not easy for the typical working person to take time off for a medical appointment. Do you need to request two hours off? Half a day? It’s hard to gauge how long a medical visit will take. Telemedicine may not get rid of all of the uncertainty, but it can eliminate commuting time, and reduce the time that, say, a follow-up appointment will take out of your day.
- The Potential for Better Safety 24/7
Telemedicine and electronic health records could greatly improve patient safety. When a patient has secure access to his or her medical records on a telemedicine smartphone app, physicians, nurses, and first responders can gain access to critical medical information quickly. Knowing that an accident victim takes steroids for asthma or insulin for diabetes can make a significant difference in the quality of care provided, right from the start.
- Medical Practices Have the Opportunity to Greatly Increase Efficiency
Access to telemedicine can greatly reduce phone call volume in a medical practice, so that doctors, nurses, and other patient care professionals can spend more time caring for patients. Patients in rural areas may spend considerable time traveling to and from doctors’ offices, or wait for the days when doctors work in outlying clinics. Telemedicine allows real-time video conferencing, reducing travel time for both doctor and patient. Patients spend less time waiting, and doctors can spend more time treating patients.
- Better Patient Outcomes
Telemedicine wouldn’t mean much if it didn’t help people get well and stay well. One study in Massachusetts of telemedicine in intensive care units through an eICU program found that telemedicine corresponded with better patient outcomes. Specifically, the eICU program resulted in an increase in patient survival rates by 26%, and a decrease in time spent on ICU and hospital discharges. The length of hospital stays was also reduced.
- Less Stress for Disabled or Chronically Ill People
Mobility and transportation issues can affect the care that disabled people and people with chronic illnesses receive. Telemedicine has the potential to change that. Again, technology is not the barrier, because the technology exists. Lawmakers on state and federal levels are working to reconcile state licensing laws and rules for Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement so that telemedicine will become an option for more people with disabilities and chronic conditions.
- Tremendous Potential for Cost Containment
Telemedicine clearly has the potential to cut costs, including costs for transportation and time loss due to medical care. But it can also contain costs in other ways. For example, telemedicine services in nursing homes have been shown to reduce hospitalization of nursing home residents, something that costs Medicare billions of dollars each year. When nursing home residents are able to avoid hospitalization, transport costs are greatly reduced, and Medicare can avoid the greater costs involved in releasing hospitalized patients back to their nursing homes.
As is the case with many technological advances, telemedicine technology outpaces the legislative process. Telemedicine has to grapple with issues of patient privacy, security of records, and reimbursement of telemedicine services by private insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid. But legislators on state and federal levels are working on the legislative barriers to wider telemedicine adoption. The main barriers are as follows:
- Licensing – of both doctors and nurses across state lines
- Scope of practice – which may vary from state to state, and which is enforced by state medical boards to each state’s standards of care
- Credentialing – for doctors practicing hospital-to-hospital telemedicine. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have introduced proxy rules for credentialing that could relieve some of the more onerous credentialing pressures.
- Remote prescribing – complicated by state pharmacy boards’ differing standards of care and differing state regulations on prescription of controlled substances
- Contracting – including different state-regulated arrangements for paying doctors in conformity with fee-splitting laws, practice-of-medicine laws, and anti-kickback statutes
For the ordinary consumer, there is every reason to be excited by advances in telemedicine. Taking care of your child’s earache without having to expose him to a waiting room full of sick kids, or knowing an elderly parent in a rural town can get the care he or she needs without a long drive or ambulance ride offers tremendous peace of mind. And when chronic conditions can be monitored and managed remotely, everyone saves time, expense, and stress.
eDrugstore.com is excited about the many advances in telemedicine because we know distance doesn’t have to be a barrier to great products and services. eDrugstore.com has served over half a million satisfied customers over the past 15 years by working with US-licensed pharmacists to dispense medications quickly, conveniently, and with the utmost respect for customer privacy and security.
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