Learn why telemedicine companies are not all equal.
Telemedicine and patient engagement should be part of your software bundle and integral to your entire practice workflow.
Explore the features of top-rated telemedicine companies.
Medical office software companies (especially telemedicine-focused companies) are making major efforts to introduce telemedicine to the booming patient-centric market. When you select telemedicine within a unified software portfolio you’ll have major advantages over standalone telemedicine. Consider this page as a buyer’s guide as you wade through the many choices of telemedicine companies and technologies.
Convenient Access
You expect simplicity and productivity. You should have easy access to your telemedicine sessions and clinical health records such as patient histories, medications, labs and orders from any location on any device.
Online Patient Scheduling
Patients expect convenience and speed. Look for companies that offer online patient scheduling, as a self-service option and your number of appointments and show-up rate will soar.
Medication Management
The best telemedicine companies include full-featured ePrescribing for medication management. New prescriptions and refill requests are key drivers of the demand for telemedicine.
Request Fulfillment
Medications, labs and refills are not only top drives of telemedicine requests, but technology companies that offer fast & easy access to these tasks can also improve your productivity..
Patient Consent Forms
No paper, no problem. Patients can fill out consent forms and update personal information online prior to office visits. Check-ins are faster and data entry-free.
Population Health Management
Use HealthWatcher to extend continuity of care. Customized health plans help you manage conditions and automated alerts keep patients engaged.
Patient Portal
A convenient, intuitive online portal helps your patients schedule appointments, request prescription renewals, pay bills or even chat with you in real time.
Family Accounts
Telemedicine companies that offer patient portals with family-account access can let parents schedule appointments, pay balances, view labs and access education for all family members.
Video Consultations
The best telemedicine companies have found ways to make consults convenient and engaging. High definition video capabilities are common and ensure the best patient experience possible.
The new era of telemedicine companies offers portfolio-based software.
Think of all the tasks you need to do in a day. Think of all the people required to do them. The last thing you need is workflow complication and systems that don’t communicate. As you review your short list of telemedicine companies, consider how all your workflow pieces might fit together and how technology automation could reduce labor. Best-in-breed telemedicine companies build portfolio or bundled software that consolidates and automates tasks – things like online appointment scheduling, visit reminders that are emailed or texted, on-screen telemedicine payments prior to the virtual visit, payment management and billing programs through a credit card on file.
When patients can manage processes traditionally done by staff, everyone wins. Choosing an integrated PM+EHR+telemedicine system, such as the AdvancedMD bundle, means your front desk and clinical staff can see telemedicine appointments and easily manage changes. Clinical notes and documentation can be done the same way you’d document a patient during an in-office visit. Prescriptions and medication management is seamless and telemedicine enables providers to assist patients 24/7 and finally earn money for a 2am call.
Telemedicine lets you boost patient satisfaction & retention with better engagement.
Patient experience technologies should be the heart of what telemedicine companies offer in an ideal bundled solution. In addition to telemedicine, features should let you offer a personal touch while creating targeted patient interactions: iPad check-in kiosk, patient portal, online consent forms, online scheduling and appointment reminders to name a few. Patient experience software can let you customize patient intake forms and consent forms and offer multiple workflow options for your practice. Your patient portal should let patients perform a myriad of tasks prior to their arrival at your office and give you the option of an iPad kiosk for any finalizing details patients need to make at your office.
Telemedicine companies & features can increase your reach & improve continuity of care.
Patient turnover threatens the financial stability of private practices. Studies have shown patients attrite primarily due to frustrations with office procedures and staff. What most telemedicine companies and private practices have found is that telemedicine is a game changer. This emerging telehealth technology offers big financial opportunities as it lets you expand your hours of availability and reach – regardless of geography – making it easier to provide quality, consistent care to your patients while maximizing your billable hours. It will deliver faster time to diagnosis and treatment, which results in better health outcomes and happier patients
Connecting the Dots
The nature of most entrepreneurs is to jump into a business sector that has higher demand than supply – hence the genesis for all the new telemedicine companies that are now surfacing. As an industry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We experienced problematic outcomes when demand from Meaningful Use financial initiatives created EHR companies by the hordes, only to give independent practices a disparate EHR that couldn’t speak to any other technology in the practice, creating additional processes, double data entry, higher errors and poor billing outcomes.
The payoff of a unified software platform is that data continuity across all systems. Everyone is able to work from the same database, data is always up to date and providers are able to work how they want, where they want with 100% access to all of their data. This is what telemedicine companies should be offering. Telemedicine was not born to live in isolation.
