Have a Better Patient Experience with Telemedicine

In the wake of COVID-19, telemedicine has taken center stage, and healthcare companies must recognize and respond to its influence on patient experience. As both patients and physicians adjust to new normal, additional questions about the technology’s impact on patient happiness emerge, particularly one critical question:

What impact will the rise of telehealth visits have on the patient experience for both patients and caregivers?

In short, on-demand, virtual care is an effective tool for those responsible for increasing patient happiness. Whitelabelled Telemedicine Platform is rated as equal to as or better than in-person consultations by consumers across specialties.

In this article, you’ll learn about the top elements that influence people’s perceptions of telemedicine, the most important patient care benefits received from virtual services, and how telemedicine affects care quality.

Telemedicine provides convenience and time savings.

The most often claimed reasons for patients’ desire for telemedicine are convenience, time savings, access to care, and financial savings. The key to improving the patient experience for virtual visits is emphasizing those benefits and assuaging worries about facetime and technology difficulties.

Telemedicine allows patients to avoid travel and waiting rooms, which are common sources of negative feedback, resulting in better baseline levels of satisfaction with providers. Several telehealth studies have highlighted this convenience benefit.

In a 2019 study of the influence of telemedicine on patient experience, researchers discovered gains in all of the National Quality Forum’s suggested domains: access (time spent in evaluation), experience (patient satisfaction), and efficacy (case cancellation rate). The telemedicine group spent an average of 24 minutes less in pre-admission testing (PAT) and had no cancellations, but numerous in-person appointments were canceled.

When it comes to follow-up consultations, telemedicine shines. Clinicians at Massachusetts General Hospital indicated telehealth was crucial in providing convenient and timely follow-up visits in a study. Seventy percent said the technology allowed them to meet patients more quickly, and 50 percent claimed telehealth was cost-effective.

Consumer preference for virtual visits is shown in telemedicine research of radiation oncology patients due to convenience and time savings. For future consultations, the majority of patients favored virtual visits, roughly one-third wanted a mix of telemedicine and in-person visits, and only one patient preferred only in-person visits.

Financial Savings and Virtual Care Access

Payers and providers are beginning to see how telemedicine might help them control expenses.

According to Teladoc’s research, a lack of access to care has a detrimental impact on patient involvement and follow-through. In many circumstances, quick and easy access to health care helps to avert the need for more complex and costly therapy.

Patients who receive therapy through telemedicine face fewer hurdles to receiving rapid care, which leads to better outcomes and increased patient satisfaction.

According to the Massachusetts General Hospital study, 79 percent of patients said scheduling a virtual follow-up session was easier than scheduling a clinic visit, and 66% stated they had strong personal ties with their telemedicine physician. Patients saw this visit option as providing significantly increased convenience and saving travel time, and they reported readiness to pay co-payments for it.

The time saved commuting to care centers is especially beneficial in rural areas. Patients lose an average of $43 in wasted time for a regular doctor’s session, according to a Harvard Medical School study, a cost they will welcome being reduced by virtual services.

MedleyMed has improved patient and member experiences for hundreds of healthcare organizations with nearly 20 years of world-class expertise and cutting-edge innovations. MedleyMed can assist you in developing a Digital Front Door healthcare experience strategy that includes the following elements.