Kathy Ford

With the country opening up, physicians are seeing a pent-up demand for services even as they work to reconfigure their practices.

Many patients are deeply concerned about the safety of visiting the doctor’s office. Some practices are in financial peril due to the shutdown. Long-standing customs like patients from rural areas 

 for simple diagnoses now seem ridiculous. And everyone is struggling to adjust to the six-foot-apart world.

The solution to all of these challenges is technology that helps physicians become more efficient, practices to communicate better internally, and patients to receive care in the most appropriate manner.

Could the 529 be the holy grail of asset protection?

When circumstances demand an in-person visit, technology can play a vital role in reducing patient stress and minimizing unnecessary contact. For example, a telehealth platform allows front-desk personnel to quickly send a secure, templated message to that day’s appointment list to let them know what to expect when they arrive. The message could include a link to online forms they can submit in advance (no more clipboards) or a reminder to bring a list of current medications.

The message might ask patients to text when they arrive and remain in their vehicle until the doctor is ready to see them. This creates a safer office environment for everyone while keeping the patient communication channel open.

Once the visit is complete, a staffer can text the patient a secure payment link, providing contact-less checkout. Some patients may receive post-care instructions via text.

As both patients and providers have learned during the pandemic, telehealth visits are appropriate for a wide variety of services such as triage (does the condition warrant an office visit), procedure follow-ups, simple diagnoses, medication-related advice, and behavioral health visits. Of course, relaxation of restrictions on government/private payer payment for telehealth will have to continue for some of these to remain viable.

Some practices will want to continue the virtual-first approach they adopted during the recent lockdown. One reason is the efficiency experienced by both providers and patients, allowing providers to see more patients without extending their schedules and limiting time spent sanitizing treatment rooms.

A second reason is the availability of telehealth platforms that go beyond text and messaging abilities to include live video via cellular service. Video visits have become an essential part of primary care during the pandemic, and providers are eager to continue that trend. Some may opt to use telehealth visits in lieu of in-office visits for a variety of situations.

Any telehealth platform your practice considers should contain the following elements:

100% secure and HIPAA compliant communications which cannot be edited nor deleted and are archived in the patient’s chart, allowing practitioners to quickly and conveniently reference past communication with their patients

Multimodality communications which support bi-directional messages that engage patients in their preferred manner including secure text messaging, PDFs, images, video conferencing, and social media access

An intuitive interface that takes hours or days for staff and clinicians to learn, not weeks or months

Full integration with EHR and PMS systems

No requirement for patients to download an app or log onto a portal to communicate with clinicians or office staff

The security component deserves special attention. Some practices will be tempted to use free communications platforms as they work to return to pre-COVID encounter levels. Not only do these channels fail to guarantee the safety of your data, many don’t store your data long term. The money you save on the front end may be completely eclipsed in the event of a 

 or a lawsuit for which you cannot produce evidence.

Having an intuitive interface is important for getting staff and clinicians using the platform to communication with patients. It’s also key to improving internal communications. When everyone in the office (admins, nurses/nurse practitioners/PAs, and physicians) experiences streamlined communications, morale soars. Instead of chasing down providers to get questions answered and playing endless games of phone tag to follow up with patients, clinicians can enter the platform and perform multiple tasks from the same interface: ask a question, send a patient reminder, enter multiple e-prescriptions, and more.

All of the items on the list above are essential to providers looking to expand their practice. If virtual visits and fast, easy communication can be part of the experience, physicians have the option to expand well beyond the geographic area they previously served. This is welcome news in parts of the country where there’s a physician shortage and patients wait weeks or months for primary care appointments. It’s also a boon for rural areas where patients must travel miles for primary care and even longer distances to see a specialist.

Marketing and promotion strategies for medical practices

In the not-too-distant future, telehealth platforms will be extended to include more capabilities aimed at facilitating patient care. For example, collecting patient data such as vital signs with the goal of sending an alert if a COVID-19-exposed individual spikes a temperature. Taken a step further, physicians could use the platform to receive alerts about changes in vitals for high-risk patients or patients they wish to monitor more closely than usual.

Until then, providers can certainly lean on today’s sophisticated telehealth platforms to prepare for the expected surge of patients as the healthcare system regains its equilibrium following the pandemic.

is president and chief product officer of

. A healthcare industry veteran with more than 27 years of experience, she has held roles in sales, marketing leadership, executive level portfolio ownership, and driven commercialized innovative solution across the global healthcare landscape at companies such as GE Medical Systems, McKesson, Siemens Medical, Carestream Dental, and NantHealth.

Articles

Telehealth platforms play a key role as physicians reconfigure office visits, adjust to new regulations, and seek to restore their practices.

How practices can shift operations to manage virtual patient engagement

In recent years, technology and patient care delivery have fundamentally transformed the practice of medicine. The way patients want to communicate with physicians has also changed, but few physicians have noticed.

Patients with a question no longer want to wait until the end of the day, the next day or longer to hear from physicians. Unfortunately, medical practice workflows haven’t fundamentally changed, which is why patient communication still has several obstacles to overcome.

Practices that want to attract younger patients and retain existing patients must look toward adopting emerging communications software that embraces both simple texts (SMS) and multimedia texts (MMS) as part of a multiplatform communications strategy.

Ignoring the communications demands of younger patients is not a winning strategy for any medical practice. Here are six reasons why a unified communications strategy makes sense.

Younger patients are beginning to dominate

Taken together, those born in 1981 and onward comprise nearly 

. The four most populous generations in the United States are:

Baby Boomers (1946-1964) – 73.5 million

Generation X (1965-1980) – 65.7 million

Younger members of Gen Z are still frequenting pediatric providers, but already a tidal wave of young adults has arrived in general practitioners’ waiting rooms across the country. These patients are tied to their mobile devices and are accustomed to receiving quick answers to their queries. And while it may seem that younger patients are driving the charge, patients of all ages want - and benefit from - additional, faster methods of communication from their physicians.

Although Americans of all ages rely on their smartphones to accomplish an ever-expanding array of tasks, millennials and Generation Z are more likely to think of their phones as extensions of themselves. To them, using technology to self-serve is the first choice in nearly all instances, versus picking up the phone.

It’s no wonder, then, that seven in 10 millennials have expressed a desire to use technology to 

, manage their preventive care and book appointments. In fact, they assume that physicians already are sharing patient information in some electronic form other than a 

 which can come as a surprise (and a potential frustration) when they need copies of medical records.

For millennials, phone calls remains the primary method for appointment setting, in-person meetings and communicating with physicians, but other options are growing: 9 percent set appointments through 

 and 5 percent through chat/instant message (IM). Communications with physicians are conducted through SMS/text 5 percent of the time while 3 percent of those conversations take place via chat/IM.

Growing acceptance of text-based communications

 use among Americans, with a 95 percent ownership rate. Three-quarters of those phones are smartphones that support simple texts as well as multimedia messages.

Although texting remains a small part of healthcare communications, younger Americans prefer texting to email or phone calls. Texts are opened 

 of the time, three times the open rate of emails. Most texts are opened within three minutes of receipt.

A multiplatform telehealth communications strategy that supports text messaging and chat/IM can create practice workflow efficiencies. Think about the amount of time staff spends calling patients about appointment reminders, prescription refill requests and other routine communications. Texting as part of a unified communications workflow can cut through the communications clutter that can prevent a practice from better serving its patients.

Patients of all ages are turning to the internet to research their health conditions and check their symptoms. And when they need care, patients also are researching specific healthcare providers and facilities. According to a MARS Consumer Health Study, about three-quarters of Americans report going 

 health and wellness information, while more than one-third report using the internet to research a specific diagnosis, condition or set of symptoms.

Communications platforms that support calling, texting and social media provide a convenient way for patients and prospective patients to reach out. And since the estimated lifetime value of a new patient has been 

, investing in technology to improve patient communications can quickly pay for itself.

Not everyone would be comfortable changing the oil in their car or repairing drywall, but technology has enabled all types of do-it-yourself activities that people are comfortable with. Think self-checkout at the grocery store, online ordering and mobile banking.

Healthcare hasn’t escaped this phenomenon, although not all practices have embraced such DIY features for patients as online appointment booking or the ability to text the practices. But practices are ignoring these innovations at their own peril. Two-thirds of millennials and those in Generation X said in a survey that they’d consider 

 to ones who offered the ability to book appointments online.

Sixty percent of physician practices say they deliver quality care to patients. But what do patients think? In a study, 81 percent said they found their 

 in some way. Among all healthcare consumers, those who interacted with physicians most frequently reported the highest rates of dissatisfaction, pointing to a disconnect between physician and patient perceptions of the same care episode.

A survey of more than 35,000 online physician reviews showed that only 4 percent of respondents complained about a physician’s skill, diagnosis or inability to deliver quality care. The main reason for a poor review, as cited in 96 percent of cases, was 

 and poor customer service. That’s something that all physicians can work to improve starting today - and at no or little cost.

The communication needs of younger patients can vary widely from the expectations of older patients. Millennial and Generation Z patients prefer more passive communications methods such as text and chat. Medical practices can gain efficiencies through one-to-many communications such as these as opposed to one-on-one phone conversations.

Practices should be actively researching methods to modernize their communications. The goal is a multilayered communications strategy that resonates with patients of all ages. Although younger patients are driving changes in the way practices communicate, catering to a wide demographic can help ensure a practice’s long-term financial success.

Kathy Ford is president and chief product officer of 

. A healthcare industry veteran with 25 years of experience, she has held roles in sales, marketing leadership and executive level portfolio ownership with merger and acquisition responsibilities at GE Medical Systems, McKesson Corporation, Siemens Medical Solutions, Carestream Dental and NantHealth. 

Millennials and Generation Z are leading the charge, but everyone benefits when they can choose how they communicate with their physician. 