Banty Co-Founder and Medical Director, Dr. Richard Tytus, provided the subject matter and direction for this article. The author would like to thank Adam Grant for his editorial assistance in writing the article. Dr. Richard Tytus takes responsibility for the content of the article.
As a doctor, you do not need to be reminded about how busy you are. Each and every day, a large cross-section of patients require your time, as does your clinic team and not to mention other healthcare professionals you collaborate with regularly.
That said, you may need to be reminded that there are tools out there to help better streamline your practice and not make every, single, day, at the clinic feel like a time management tightrope act.
In short, we are talking about virtual medicine solutions and their ability to let you host online doctor’s appointments. If the term ‘virtual medicine’ is new-ish to you, that’s okay. A lot of those in the healthcare industry still classify remote patient consultations as a telemedicine service, even if such appointments can now be conducted in video form from a computer, tablet, or smartphone – not just via an office phone.
No matter the term you use to define what a doctor-patient video call appointment is, the reality is that meeting with patients in this manner will allow you to make better use of your time and theirs.
Wouldn’t You Like to Create an Ultra-Flexible Schedule?
When you implement a secure and easy virtual medicine solution like Banty Virtual Clinic, one of the biggest advantages you will experience is being able to create a flexible appointment schedule.
For instance, you can designate certain days of the week in which you will only see patients via video conferences. This will make it possible for you to conduct virtual visits from your home office, or – if attending a conference – from your hotel room.
Or, to keep yourself from having to jump back and forth from in-person and virtual appointments, block out a few hours each day in which only online doctor visits are conducted.
Beyond creating a flexible schedule, putting such a workflow tactic in place will save you the time of having to figure out where you need to be, and when.
How Great Would it be for Patients to See How Much You Value Their Time?
One of the struggles people have with making doctor’s appointments is trying to find time in their hectic schedules to physically get to one. Oftentimes, this requires adjusting work hours, parental obligations, or eliminating important errands in order to see a physician.
When you offer patients the opportunity to have a live video chat online with you instead of asking them to travel in for every appointment they need, you are making their lives easier.
Right away, you are helping them eliminate the lengthy amount of time it can take them to travel to and from an in-person appointment. Also, there will no longer be a concern about arriving early – just in case – only to have to sit around in a crowded waiting room for an undetermined period of time.
Instead, an online medicine appointment can be accessed by a patient from their home, office, or even car, using a mobile device. More often than not, these patients can go about their day until notified by the clinic that their appointment has begun.
Did You Know Telehealth Can Result in Fewer Future, Escalated Appointments?
Especially during the height of the COVID-19 global pandemic, patients were hesitant about visiting a doctor’s office. Some of these clinics didn’t have virtual medicine solutions, while others did, but patients either didn’t know about the possibility of virtual visits, or didn’t understand the technology.
In some cases, this led to more people not seeing their doctor to check on new health issues that popped up, or pre-existing ones that needed regular monitoring. As a result, certain conditions worsened, leading to the need for a far more intensive doctor’s appointment routine.
By having a reliable virtual medicine solution at your clinic and an ability to effectively communicate to patients about it, you are in many ways capable of nipping certain medical matters in the bud.
Consequently, you are cutting down on the time you need to devote to a specific patient. In exchange, the patient’s health issue does not escalate to a point of no return, nor will they need to attend such a high number of in-person appointments.
Once patients know how to see a doctor online, they will seek out health care providers who offer virtual visits. You can be one of those providers by signing up to Banty Virtual Clinic today.
