What is Telehealth Urgent Care – Overview
There have been numerous innovations in the past years that have significantly improved healthcare delivery. Chief amongst these is telehealth technology. The urgent care industry is diverse and has seen several successful healthcare delivery models being implemented to ensure efficacy, convenience and affordability in patient care.
In this article, we shall look closer at telehealth urgent care medical services.
What is Telehealth?
Telehealth is a telecommunication and online communication technology method to provide health and medical services to patients without the need to appear for a conventional in-person visit. It uses mobile devices and other real-time transmission or recording technology that connects patients for consultations with medical professionals.
It is an excellent alternative, efficient, and extremely affordable way to access healthcare services, especially in underserved communities, such as rural areas. This technology has provided an incredible opportunity for healthcare providers to offer their services improved and more effectively.
Telehealth has been around for decades but has recently found incredible popularity after the global COVID-19 pandemic. This technology proved extremely vital for patients receiving prompt and effective medical care from their homes.
Telehealth urgent care is online, live urgent medical care video visits with a doctor, physician assistant, and nurse practitioners for non-life-threatening health conditions, such as flu, fever, sore throat, etc.
In this virtual visit, your healthcare provider will discuss your symptoms, reply to queries, diagnose you, and prescribe medications using video-chat technology. It is advisable to use telehealth urgent care when it is not an emergency. In case of a medical emergency, it is highly advised to call 911.
Growth of Telehealth Urgent Care
What is Telehealth Urgent Care – Growth of Telehealth Services
Numerous factors are contributing to the incredibly swift growth of telehealth services across the country, including:
- Increasing numbers of people entering the telehealth system
- Lack of sufficient physicians
- Significantly long waiting times at doctor’s clinics, offices and hospitals
- Lack of quality healthcare services
- Lack of access to healthcare in remote areas
- Higher cost of conventional healthcare services
- Increasing patient demand
- Video-calling technology is becoming more common
- Medical malpractice risk is underwritten in most insurance policies
- Different states are becoming more familiar and adapting to reimburse telehealth services
- Healthcare providers are adapting to telehealth services
- Healthcare cost increase makes telehealth increasingly affordable
Using telehealth urgent care services, patients and providers are able to address the three biggest problems affecting conventional healthcare delivery, namely:
- Better quality of healthcare services – Research shows that the quality of healthcare services delivered using telehealth technology is as effective as that provided during conventional in-person visits to a healthcare provider.
- Affordable healthcare services – Telehealth urgent care services have increased efficiency, improved management and made healthcare services more effective.
- Prompt access to healthcare services – Telehealth technology delivers healthcare services to patients round-the-clock, regardless of their location and offers improved and more extensive urgent care services.
Benefits of Telehealth Urgent Care
Telehealth technology is mostly used to treat routine health problems, such as sore throat, cold and flu symptoms, allergies, UTIs, ear infections, and pediatric care. All these health issues would otherwise require the patient to travel to a doctor’s office or clinic for treatment. However, telehealth technology allows patients to receive effective medical care at home.
According to reports by the American Medical Association (AMA), around 70% of doctor’s visits and 40% of emergency room visits are unnecessary. The studies show that these health problems could be effectively remedied through telehealth urgent care services.
Besides this, telehealth has successfully helped 91% of patients resolve their health issues, ensured a 95% satisfaction rate, and only takes around 16 minutes on average. In addition, telehealth services have helped 8% of patients to avoid going unnecessarily to the emergency room and 43% from going to a PCP.
Telehealth urgent care services are mostly used:
- While traveling
- After-hours of medical clinic
- Non-emergency medical problems
- When a doctor is unavailable at the clinic or hospital
Once the doctor has made a diagnosis using telehealth technology, the patient’s prescription can be sent directly to the doctor’s pharmacy or the patient’s pharmacy, as requested by the patient.
Telehealth, urgent care technology, makes it convenient for people to receive medical care. Some of the major benefits of choosing telehealth urgent care are:
- Quicker access to quality healthcare services
- Board-certified doctors, licensed nurses and physician assistant on-call
- Less or minimal time spent waiting for the appointment
- No traveling is required to visit a doctor
- Prescriptions are provided online
When to Use Telehealth Urgent Care Services?
As mentioned, telehealth urgent care is suitable for non-life-threatening health problems, such as:
- Allergies
- Acne
- Cough
- Bronchitis
- Earache
- Headache
- Diarrhea
- Flu
- Fever
- Nausea
- Nasal congestion
- Pink eye
- Sinus infections
- Respiratory infections
- Sore throat
- Skin infections
- Vomiting
- Yeast infections
- Urinary tract infection (UTI)
Call 911 for life-threatening emergency care situations.
Conclusion
Telehealth urgent care has made receiving prompt and convenient medical care for non-life-threatening problems incredibly easy and affordable. You can find out if your family physician or doctor provides telehealth urgent care services with a simple phone call and know how to schedule an online appointment.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8680069/
https://curative.com/virtual-urgent-care
See Also
Blue Cross Blue Shield Telehealth
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