Patients want the option to do virtual visits versus in-person appointments. In fact, studies show that 75% of patients needing urgent care are interested in a virtual visit instead of an in-person appointment.
Urgent care providers, especially those practicing in rural areas, find that visiting people in person can lead to long travel times, delays, and loss of income because they could be seeing more patients in less time. Building more urgent care clinics often is not fiscally feasible. In fact, start up costs can reach $1,000,000 per clinic.
Virtual care provides solutions too many of these problems. Here are four ways to use it in an urgent care setting and expand reach, engage patients and enhance outcomes.
1) Increase patient flow and enhance outcomes.
With more patients flocking to urgent care centers than ever before, providers and managers need tools to keep up with demand, reduce irritating wait times, and deliver high-quality care as quickly as possible. Increasingly, telemedicine is the answer. It can boost practice revenue, maximize patient flow, and ultimately lead to happier, healthier patients.
See how an urgent care improved efficiency with telemedicine
2) Create your digital front door with virtual care as its hinges.
Modern telemedicine solutions (such as eVisit) are instrumental in creating a strong digital front door strategy. Urgent care caters to the healthcare consumerism. It provides a method for patients to be seen without unnecessary travel, increased and stressful waiting times, seamless prescribing, and so much more.
3) Fit patient needs to your workflow and schedule.
Patients can schedule their own virtual visits at their convenience, so appointments fit into your workflow and schedule. Collecting payment is easier, too. From refilling a prescription to treating an illness, sophisticated telemedicine solutions collect payments from your patients and provide a detailed medical chart to submit to insurance companies for reimbursement.
4) Lower uncompensated visit percentages and take the stress off the ED
Virtual care is designed to let your providers treat the common conditions that are the bread and butter of urgent care visits and triage true emergencies appropriately.
Patients are happier, too, because the last thing they want in urgent care is a long wait time or the need to travel when they are ill to gain access to high-quality care.
Virtual care will boost income from your urgent care practice. It’s an easy-to-use solution that meets the consumerism demands of today’s patients, increases the number of appointment times, and is more cost effective than building more brick and mortar facilities.
