It's ironic. I think of all the messages patients call about. We hate them. They are more work than seeing the patient. But, they are used to calling in so we can convert them to VV. Virtual Visits.
We get anywhere from 5 to 10 per day. But, I will be using 1800notify.com to send a blast text tomorrow. Over 2000 phone numbers. Of course, some won't be our patients anymore and some will be home numbers, but probably 1500 or so will get through.
The issue is patients either don't want to go out or go to the ED. They DON'T KNOW about telemedicine. We aren't sure when we will get to video. Maybe Facetime, maybe WhatsApp, maybe doxy.me. I guess with older patients, seeing how they appear will be good to do video. There just aren't that many situations where my seeing the patient vs just a phone call will change things. After all, I have done maybe 100,000 pages by phone over the years.
It is to CMS's advantage to have these as it keeps patients from going to the doctors' office or the ED.
