The Top Telehealth Features to Look For

All across the country, providers are adopting the fastest growing segment of healthcare into their practices. This revolutionary technology has the ability to decrease provider shortages, increase revenue, increase patient engagement, increase practice efficiency, and much more. Telehealth is changing the way that healthcare is accessed by patients and delivered to them by providers.

With this new tool, providers have the opportunity to care for their patients in a new and exciting way. At the same time, telehealth pushes a practice into the future and positions it for success. The catch that providers need to keep an eye out for is that not all telehealth technology is the same. Many vendors are pushing technology that may not be the best for a provider. To make sure your practice has the best possible telehealth technology available to them, providers should look for these top features.

1)    Seamless Electronic Health Record Integration

In the early stages of telehealth development, providers found that this tool was incredibly useful at bringing access to care to patients who struggled to find it. In urgent care situations, providers could be meet with their patients via video communication, assess their symptoms and discuss concerns, then prescribe medications accordingly. This brought healthcare to patients who could not access it as easily. As time progressed providers found that, while this was an incredibly useful step, this kind of care could be improved. One of the most important features to look for in today’s telehealth technology is EHR integration. The reason being that providers have found it incredibly helpful to have patient medical records and history available to them as they are visiting with the patient. This integration helps to improve workflow for providers as well as better the care that is being delivered to patients via telehealth technology. With this integration, providers can have a more complete picture of the patient’s health when making medical decisions and designing treatment plans.

2)    Geo-Based Pharmacy Recommendations

Something that has become a major inconvenience in the lives of patients outside of normal troublesome healthcare is the prescription pickup. Much of today’s technology assumes that a patient would like to pick up their prescriptions in the same pharmacy every time and this is not realistic. Part of why telehealth is so appealing is that it meets the patients exactly where they are at, which is often on the go. While pharmacies can often download prescriptions from their sister pharmacies to try to help traveling patients, this is still not always the most convenient option for patients. The second feature providers should look for in telehealth technology is geo-based pharmacy recommendations. This is an important feature that makes picking up a prescription a simple process for patients. Providers can now recommend the closest pharmacy for their traveling patients.

3)    Simplified Billing

The telehealth technology that a practice utilizes should not only be integrated with the office EHR, but with every software that is used in the office. This includes the billing software at any practice. Having the telehealth software in a practice fully integrated with the office billing removes the stress and time consumption associated with billing. Now, all a provider has to do is turn on the software and simply bill a claim from the telehealth module. This helps providers make sure they are accurately and efficiently filing claims, both increasing on-time claims and clean claims within a practice. Not only has this but on the patient side of things, patients also have all of their tools in one place. Patients log into their patient portal to complete a telehealth visit with their providers, review their personal health information, message their provider, and pay their bills. This simplified billing helps make sure patients understand their medical bills and pay them on time. This increases the amount of on-time payments for providers as well as offer patients transparent and comprehendible care.

There are many other tools to look for in telehealth that benefits patients and providers, but these three are crucial. It is important to have a complete picture of a patient’s history with integrated EHR, offer increased convenience with geo-based pharmacy recommendations, and simplified billing all within the already incredibly tool that is telehealth. To learn more about telehealth or request a free demo, contact our team.