Will Your Next Doctor Visit Be Online?

Your next doctor visit could very well be online. If not this year, it won’t be long before your doctor will be available online to answer routine questions, discuss treatment options and even prescribe medications for common illnesses.

Scheduling, driving, parking, walking, and waiting just to get a quick question answered or a needed prescription is terribly inefficient and costly to you and your insurance company.

Telemedicine statistics reported at the American Medical Association claim that as many as 70% of the trips to the doctor’s office and near 50% of the trips to the ER can be avoided by making doctors more readily accessible to patients over the phone and Internet.

While many patient evaluations are best done in person, doctors who fully embrace telemedicine can dramatically reduce in-office visits enabling them work at home providing telemedicine consults 3-4 days per week and utilize a time-shared examination room to do in-office visits when necessary.

Question to our readers: If your doctor won't do online visits, would you switch doctors to get access to a doctor who practices telemedicine?