How Can Telehealth Virtual Visits Help Your Employees Stay Healthy?
As an employer, you know that when your workers are healthy, your business runs better. You also know that you play a vital role in helping your employees get well and stay well. One effective way to do so is to make it possible for them to access high-quality health care from home, work, or virtually anywhere. How? By offering telehealth services and encouraging your employees to take advantage of them.
During a Virtual Visit, an employee can consult with an experienced medical provider at PhysicianOne Urgent Care via a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or webcam-enabled desktop computer. In certain non-life-threatening situations, telehealth can eliminate the need for an inconvenient and expensive visit to an emergency room or a physician’s office. It also minimizes the spread of germs, which is an especially important consideration during the COVID-19 pandemic, when everyone is encouraged to stay home as much as possible.
Here are just some of the ways that telehealth can help your employees stay healthy:
A Heightened Focus on One-on-One Conversations
A Virtual Visit is free of the many distractions that are often present in a busy medical office. As a result, both the patient and the provider can focus more fully on the issues at hand. A video chat is also a far more effective means of communication than a classic telephone call. Some people are uncomfortable being 100% transparent verbally, and a glimpse of a patient’s facial expressions, body language, physical condition, and environment can supply the provider with valuable insight into the patient’s thoughts. It can also help to humanize the encounter, reminding the patient that the provider is a real person who cares and is available to offer support.
Fewer Obstacles Preventing Access to Care
With today’s busy lifestyles, numerous things can get in the way of an in-person office visit. Many employees and students have trouble scheduling the necessary time off from work or school. Some people have child care and other family responsibilities that cannot be easily offloaded. Transportation can be time-consuming and expensive. All of these challenges increase the likelihood that a patient will delay, skip, or cancel a necessary medical appointment. Telehealth eliminates these barriers by allowing patients to access care from wherever they are physically located.
A Broader Approach to Treatment
The option of a Virtual Visit makes it easier for both the provider and the patient to develop a comprehensive treatment plan that may address needs that are not always discussed during a traditional office visit. For instance, due to insurer requirements, separate in-person appointments may be needed to review test results, manage medications, or discuss weight loss or smoking cessation. Telehealth allows providers to take a more holistic approach to health care without having a negative impact on office administration.
Reduced Risk of Exposure
Even when everyone takes appropriate precautions, the risk of spreading illness increases whenever a contagious person leaves home. During a Virtual Visit, an infected person can be assessed without exposing other patients, office staff, or anyone else to the infectious germs. Likewise, patients who don’t have a transmittable condition benefit by being seen remotely because they don’t have to come in contact with contagious people who must be seen in the office.
Receive the Right Care, Right Now
PhysicianOne Urgent Care offers telehealth consultations to address many common, non-emergency illnesses and workplace injuries, such as cold and flu symptoms, headaches, cuts and lacerations, first-degree burns, skin rashes, and muscle strains. In addition to being convenient, a Virtual Visit with a PhysicianOne Urgent Care provider is completely private and secure. To learn more, contact us today.
