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2 Common Barriers to Getting More Patients in Telehealth
#1 Common Barrier - You haven’t defined who or what you’re serving through video visits?
Can you clearly communicate to your patients and staff who and what type of conditions you treat through video visits?
If the answer is no, you’re missing patients because you, patients, and staff are not sure ‘who’ should do telehealth.
When you're wondering why you can't find patients, I challenge you to ask yourself, do you have limiting beliefs about who and what can be treated through video? I'm not suggesting you go outside the standard of care and do things that aren’t appropriate for your scope of practice or your license. If a clinical requirement is to hear the heart sounds and you don't have a digital stethoscope, which does exist, then it’s not appropriate for a video visit. But if you are a cardiologist and you need to adjust meds, that's absolutely appropriate.
Get clear on who and what you serve. Define it, write it down and then all hands on deck to recruit and serve those patients through video visits.
#2 Common Barrier - Confidence on Video
If you’re going to get more patients in your program, you’ve got to be confident on video.
Ask yourself:
What do you hate about being on video? Don’t like your hair, bad lighting that makes you washed out, double chin, wrinkles, messy desk, ugly office. It’s normal to be uncomfortable on camera. Fix the things you can and get past the ones you can't. But you must gain confidence with video.
I was not a natural on video but after 10 years of training and implementing telehealth with providers, I’m very comfortable on camera.
If you're not confident about who you can treat, what you can treat and your ability to use this tool to connect with patients, when you offer the telehealth visit it’s going to come across to the patient as an inferior service.