The COVID-19 pandemic has made routine visits to your doctor’s office an unsafe option; however, it has also significantly elevated the profile of telemedicine, a less hazardous alternative to in-person consultations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the landscape of our everyday lives. No longer do we blithely hop in the car and drive to the nearest supermarket to pick up a handful of necessities. Such trips are now carefully planned expeditions, undertaken only once we’ve donned protective masks to minimize the threat of infection.
And though the very nature of the pandemic focuses the spotlight on medicine, our relationship with medical professionals is also different now. Barring the emergence of suspected COVID-19 symptoms, most of us are steering clear of doctor’s offices, hospitals, and urgent care clinics. These are off-limits because they’re seen as likely areas where the infection might be rampant.
But life goes on. And our everyday ills and routine medical needs cannot be denied indefinitely. What to do?
A Heyday for Telemedicine
Telemedicine, the delivery of healthcare through the wonders of telecommunications technology, has been around for years in various forms. However, against the backdrop of the current pandemic, there’s been a surge of new interest in the possibilities that telemedicine (also known as telehealth) offers.
What are the implications of telemedicine’s suddenly growing popularity for the way patients and healthcare providers will interact in the future, well after the current crisis is behind us? Will the public’s embrace of telemedicine prove to be transitory? Or will real-time experience with telemedicine convince healthcare consumers to make it a regular part of their regimen?
For Arizona-based eDrugstore.com, the telemedicine platform is the backbone of its business. An online medical facilitator since the late 1990s, eDrugstore serves as a middleman between healthcare consumers, physicians, and pharmacies. Among other things, this article will take a look at the role telemedicine plays in its day-to-day business.
US Business Is Booming
An April 2020 article at CNBC.com chronicled the widespread adoption of telemedicine as an alternative to in-person interactions with healthcare providers. According to the article, analysts from Forrester Research estimate that virtual healthcare interactions could well hit 1 billion by the end of 2020, representing a huge increase in telemedicine encounters.
It’s clear that this sudden surge in telemedicine interactions is being fueled by fears about infection with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. And Trump administration officials gave telemedicine a further boost with their March announcement that Medicare would “temporarily pay clinicians to provide telehealth services for beneficiaries residing across the entire country.”
According to CNBC, the promise of Medicare reimbursement was virtually simultaneous with Trump’s administration warning that doctors and their patients should avoid in-person visits except for the most dire of emergencies.
Forrester Research analyst Arielle Trzcinski told CNBC that the administration’s recommendation of telemedicine as an alternative to in-person visits has gone a long way toward increasing public awareness about this alternative.
In the New York-New Jersey area, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, physicians have been asked to curtail nonessential office visits and go virtual instead, according to CNBC.
CNBC interviewed Bob Murry, M.D., the chief medical officer for NextGen Healthcare, a company that develops electronic health record software and practice management systems for the healthcare industry. Murry, who has a small New Jersey family medical practice of his own, said he has now switched all appointments to virtual-only.
Teladoc CEO Sees ‘New Era’
Interviewed by CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Teladoc Health’s CEO Jason Gorevic said, “The demand has shifted forever on virtual care, and we’re on the verge of a new era for virtual care in the health-care system.” Teladoc is a multinational virtual healthcare company based in Westchester County, New York.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Teladoc has seen its virtual medical appointments more than double since the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. The company is hosting more than 20,000 remote medical appointments daily.
Telemedicine Won’t Treat All Ills
Pandemic or no pandemic, certain medical conditions clearly are inappropriate for treatment via telemedicine. If you’ve been the victim of traumatic injury or are experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack or stroke, a hospital emergency department is still the best place to seek the immediate care your condition demands.
However, that leaves a broad area of medical interaction that still fits the telemedicine model. If you’re experiencing the symptoms of a cold or the flu, a doctor consulted via telemedicine technology can easily assess your condition and prescribe the appropriate medications to relieve your discomfort and get you on the road to recovery.
Psychological counseling, dermatologic consultations, and follow-up monitoring for post-operative recovery or chronic health conditions are all suited for telemedicine.
Most of the medical conditions cited above can be treated through telemedicine consultations that patients access using their personal smartphones, tablets, and computers that are hooked up to the Internet.
Sophisticated Telemedicine Kiosks
For more advanced medical care via telemedicine, the virtual healthcare industry has installed telehealth kiosks in workplaces and retail settings, offering sophisticated diagnostic tools. Using cutting-edge telemetry technology, medical professionals can remotely take a patient’s vitals and more closely evaluate them in a setting that’s better suited for close-up examination, albeit from a remote location.
These kiosks have been installed in the offices and factories of many of the nation’s largest employers, and they can also be found in select retail pharmacies and certain large shopping malls.
Telemedicine and eDrugstore
As previously noted, eDrugstore.com is an online medical facilitator that has used telemedicine services to serve its customers since the late 1990s. Based in Tempe, Arizona, eDrugstore offers a select range of lifestyle prescription medications and facilitates the customer experience from start to finish using telemedicine technology.
Among the medications available from eDrugstore are erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs, hair-loss medications, smoking cessation products, weight-loss drugs, and antiviral medications. Almost all of these drugs require a doctor’s prescription.
The complimentary online consultation service available from eDrugstore sets up telemedicine encounters between licensed U.S. physicians and customers in need of prescriptions. During these online interactions, the physician must make a determination as to whether the customer is an appropriate candidate for the drug being ordered. If so, a prescription is issued.
All doctor’s prescriptions are then routed electronically by eDrugstore to one of its U.S.-licensed pharmacy partners that promptly fills the prescription and ships the medication off to the customer. Shipping and handling are free.
If you’d like to learn more about all the services that eDrugstore has to offer, pay a visit to its homepage at eDrugstore.com. There, you’ll find answers to frequently asked questions about its services as well as links to pages where you can order the lifestyle medications of your choice.
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