How a family medicine practice protected revenue and served more patients with telehealth
How can practices protect revenue while serving more patients and improving outcomes? During the COVID-19 pandemic, Southwest Family Medicine was faced with a serious challenge: how to reach patients and provide outstanding care when in-person appointments weren’t an option. Thanks to the right telehealth technology, the practice was able to see more patients and maintain cash flow. “Instead of losing revenue during a time when everyone was experiencing a downturn, we’ve stayed busy”, said office manager Shanna Hammond.
In her time at Southwest Family Medicine, Shanna has seen it all: patients arriving with common colds, broken bones and chronic conditions. What she hadn’t seen before 2020 was a once-in-a-lifetime, pandemic-driven shutdown that left her office deserted. With patients unable to attend in-person appointments, Southwest Family Medicine turned to other options to treat patients virtually.
Like many practices, Southwest Family Medicine did not previously offer telehealth services. So, when faced with a pandemic and the need to see patients from afar, they turned to existing virtual appointment apps.
These off-the-shelf appointment applications were not only clunky and difficult for patients and providers to use they also presented HIPAA compliance issues. Worse yet, patients ran into compatibility issues with their mobile devices and desktops, creating a nightmare for scheduling and keeping appointments.
“We started out using systems that were the quickest and most familiar to our patients”, Shanna said, “but we realized that we were fighting an uphill battle with apps that weren’t designed for healthcare settings.”
Discover the value of telehealth for family medicine
To address compliance and accessibility issues, the team at Southwest Family Medicine turned to Inovalon Virtual Care, a secure and user-friendly solution that was much easier for patients and staff to use. For details on their success, check out our case study now.
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