Will the Covid-Induced Telemedicine Scramble Change Primary Care Forever?

By HANS DUVEFELT, MD After my posts on telemedicine were published recently, (this one on Manly Wellness before the pandemic and this one after it erupted, on A Country Doctor Writes, then reblogged on The Health Care Blog, KevinMD and many others), I have been asked about my views on telemedicine’s role in the future of primary care. Things have changed quickly, and a bit chaotically, and there is a lot of experimentation happening right now in practices I work or speak with. Before thinking about telemedicine in Primary Care, we need to agree on some sort of definition of primary care, because there are so many functions and services we lump together under that term. Minor Illnesses Many people think of primary care mostly as treating minor, episodic illnesses like colds, rashes, minor sprains and the like. This is an area that has attracted a lot of interest because it is easy money for the providers, since the visits tend to be quick and straightforward and such televisits are also attractive for the insurance companies if they can keep insured patients out of the emergency room. With the technical limitations of video quality and objective data such as heart rate and rhythm, I think this is an absolute growth area for telemedicine. However, with all the other forms but mostly here, fragmentation of care could become a complicated problem. To put it bluntly, if we still expect a medical professional or a health care organization to keep an...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: COVID-19 Medical Practice primary care Telehealth Telemedicine Source Type: blogs