What is telehealth?

Telehealth is an innovative way of delivering health care services to the patients who may not have sufficient healthcare choices nearby, are in a long-term care facility, or who may require home-based care due to age or medical siuation. Telehealth makes use of advanced technology accessible to nearly anyone to deliver high quality health care to its patients and healthcare facilities. Patients can easily access the services from their homes or healthcare facility because the telemedicine service is an interlinked network of healthcare providers and patients that makes use of secure HIPAA-compliant video conferencing for telemedicine consultations.A telehealth consultation can also take the place of a traditional telephone conversation between the doctor and patient to provide a richer, more interactive and effective telemedicine consultation.

The telemedicine consultation can be done through three different ways:

1. Video conferencing method - Encrypted HIPAA-compliant technology is the most secure ways of carrying the video consultations for every kind of business and even the telehealth companies prefer it as the safest tools to carry on with their procedures.

2. Telecommunication network - The process of telemedicine consultation can be done through a telephonic conversation or through an audio conferencing via the internet. The main limitation here is that telephone consultations are not covered by most healthcare insurance plans whiel intreractive, real-time video consultation are being covered by an increasing number of plans.

3. Home telehealth services - One example of this is that there are certain conditions that need to be checked frequently for veterans to keep a check on their health. This also applies to members of Managed Long-Term Care plans where home-based healthcare is the model. Conditions like High Blood pressure and Diabetes are two common conditions that need to be monitored regularly and visiting a doctor regularly is not always a feasible option. In combination with secure video consultations, tools like BP monitoring devices or blood glucose monitor devices offer the convenience of examining the conditions on a regular periodic basis. These are the kinds of home telehealth services that offer the convenience of home-based access to quality healthcare and keeping the doctor better informed so they can provide superior advice and treatment.

It is quite convenient to schedule a telehealth consultation meeting with a specialist by following a few simple steps:

1. It is very important to find out about the telehealth service providers that service your area to make the initial step in registering as a member of the telehealth organization.

2. Register with the selected company to be a member of the service. The registration process requires merely the filling in an online registration form on the web or in a mobile app that asks for basic health and insurance details to create a aprofile for the patient. The patient can select the priority for a specialist doctor for the treatment of a particular ailment and access specialized services.

3. After the process of registration, the telehealth company sends an email to the customer with their account username and password. They may also follow up with a call and describe the details about their services and the customer is free to schedule their first meeting with the doctor.

4. After the telehealth consultation is scheduled, the doctor and patient can start with the live video conferencing for a secure and confidential telehealth consultation.

5. To proceed with the process of consultation, the patient will typically pay their traditional insurance copay fee or full cost if self-paying to access the services of the health care professionals. The fees that these companies charges are nominal and usually less than the fees that are charged by the doctors for meeting them personally. The fee gets charged to the patient's credit or debit card for each consultation.

Telehealth consultation is a wonderful strategy and has been proven in many cases to be as effective as an office visit, while being much more convenient and faster.