Telehealth is here to stay for the long-term. If you’re ready to fast-track your virtual care offerings, you’ll need to ensure that your organization is prepared to provide this. Below are eight considerations to review before offering these services.
What is your organization’s overarching telehealth strategy?
Organizations need a well-defined strategy as the demand for telehealth offerings expands. In this case, a definition of what will be offered, its fit with your existing care delivery model, how patients interact with practices and adaptation to regulatory changes are integral parts to this strategy.
Who is working on your telehealth rollout?
Establishing and expanding telehealth requires buy-in from all levels of the organization. For example, roles including executive sponsor, physician champions, marketing and IT need clear definitions.
How will you schedule patients for their virtual visits?
Patient virtual care includes phone screens, e-visits or video visits. Because of this, organizations need to determine how to manage each option given to patients, how to route patients to the appropriate type of care and how to optimize the patient’s access and scheduling experience.
What updates need to be made to your EHR?
Deploying telehealth means new appointment types, documentation workflows and billing requirements. In this case, organizations will need to incorporate these changes into their build or maintenance cycles and thoroughly test the functionality.
How are you incorporating changes in reimbursement models?
Changes in telehealth billing and reimbursement are occurring rapidly. Organizations will need to adapt revenue cycle workflows and EHRs. Additionally, organizations should be having conversations with their biggest payers on reimbursement changes.
What are the hardware and networking requirements to offer telehealth visits?
Virtual care requires a great deal of technical and hardware setup and maintenance. Moreover, organizations need to plan for and manage bandwidth, system access and third-party applications and device integration.
What is your training plan for schedulers and clinicians?
Staff need to understand how to manage virtual visits scheduling and care delivery. In addition, training and tip sheets are useful for staff managing these visits to ensure a smooth patient and provider experience.
How will patients know about your virtual offerings?
Promoting and receiving a return on your virtual healthcare investment requires organizations to establish and execute on a telehealth marketing and communications plan.
If you’re looking for more assistance in creating a strategy for virtual health offerings, our team of experts are here to help. Reach out to us today.
