Telemedicine – the marriage of medicine and modern telecommunications technology – is taking the world by storm. More and more people are availing of this new and groundbreaking form of medical treatment. There are lots of great advantages to choosing telemedicine over traditional medicine. One of the biggest advantages is the huge amount of time a person can save by using telemedicine.

Telemedicine tends to be far more time-efficient than any other type of medical treatment. It can save people hours, and often literally days, worth of time! Here are six reasons telemedicine is such a huge timesaver.

Telemedicine Gives Patients a Vast Amount of Choice, Right at Their Fingertips

Telemedicine allows people to save a huge amount of time by searching for the most appropriate medical services for them from the comfort of their own home, via the internet. In the past, finding the right doctor to treat your particular medical condition was often akin to a very time-consuming search for a needle in a haystack, but today telemedicine allows medical professionals to operate in a digital space that is extremely easily and quickly accessible to anyone with a computer and internet connection. It now takes less time than ever before to find the right doctor for your specific needs using telemedicine.

Telemedicine Cuts Down the Need to Travel One of the most time-consuming aspects of traditional medical treatment was the travel involved. Even for a minor medical condition traveling to the local doctor’s surgery can be quite a time-consuming undertaking. For patients who need to see a specialist often a long trip to another city, state, or even country is required. Telemedicine has made it possible to have a consultation with a medical professional anywhere in the world remotely without having to leave your home. This means that long and time-consuming journeys are now far less necessary than in the past, and this is a huge timesaver.

No more getting stuck in traffic on the way to the doctor’s surgery!

Telemedicine Does Away With the Need to Queue in a Doctor’s Waiting Room

A huge time-sink in traditional medicine was the obligatory wait in the doctor’s waiting room. Queues can be painfully long in doctors’ surgeries, especially during busy seasons such as winter, when colds and flus are most common. Queuing in a doctor’s waiting room is most people’s idea of “dead time” – it’s difficult to be productive as you sit there marinating in other people’s germs (no matter how riveting the selection of out-of-date magazines happens to be!). Telemedicine has improved this situation in two major ways. Firstly, it has made it much less necessary to visit a doctor’s surgery for many people, much of the time. People with minor illnesses and ailments can have their needs met using a telemedicine consultation, so they save all the time they otherwise would have wasted queuing. Secondly, since many people are getting to stay away from the surgery altogether, for people who do need to attend in-person, the queues now tend to be much smaller.

Telemedicine Facilitates Instantaneous Transmission Of Medical Information

In the past, time would be wasted while results of tests would be mailed around in hard copy form. Thankfully, those days are now gone. Telemedicine has made it possible to send advanced test results from doctor to doctor, from hospital to hospital, and from both doctor and hospital to patient. This high-fidelity, instantaneous transmission of medical information has resulted in huge time savings for patients and medical professionals alike.

Technology goes a long way in helping to reduce time spent transmitting medical data.

Telemedicine Allows Patients to Choose the Most Efficient Medical Professionals

Telemedicine opens up a vast market of choice for patients and consumers of medical and surgical services. Not all medical professionals are created equal, and therefore some operate at a higher level of efficiency than others. Telemedicine allows patients to save a lot of precious time by choosing to consult with the most competent, skilled, and time-efficient medical professionals in the world. This results in huge time savings for patients.

Telemedicine Reduces Emergency Room Waiting Times

Everybody has a story about somebody they know attending an emergency room and having to wait some hilariously huge amount of time to receive some relatively minor treatment. Many of these tales are probably exaggerated for comic effect, yet there is no doubt that ER waiting times over the past few decades have often tended to be quite long in many parts of the country. But telemedicine has come to the rescue in this area, too! ER waiting times are decreasing as more and more people are able to stay away from ERs because they are getting their ailments sorted out via telemedicine. This means that queues in ERs are shorter, waiting times are subsequently decreasing… and precious time is being saved!

In an age of rapid and monumental digital change, the health care sector has remained largely untouched. The internet changed the way so many industries do business, with Amazon challenging shops, Spotify and iTunes taking on physical CDs, and Netflix almost completely replacing digital television. These are unprecedented shifts in our 21st century landscape, and by all accounts, there’s plenty more to come. Yet, for a long time, health care remained the same; if you have a problem, you go and see your doctor, who assesses you and passes you onto a specialist if required. All that changed, and is set to continue to change, with the advent of telemedicine, a new arena of health care which benefits both patients and doctors.

Strangely, telemedicine is not a new concept, but instead comes from a practice introduced in the 1960s, which used telecommunications (i.e. telephones in those days) to connect remotely located patients with doctors. The same fundamental idea is still used for telemedicine in 2018, but of course, the available tools have opened up significantly. The word “telemedicine” now includes a number of different digital devices, including laptops, tablets, and the ultimate symbol of the digital age, the smartphone. Using these tools and an internet connection, patients now have access to their doctors anytime they want, as well as having access to many resources that were previously unavailable.

With telemedicine, you can contact your doctor immediately.

This is undoubtedly the single biggest way that telemedicine is disrupting the health care industry. Following on from many other industries that have introduced “on-demand” services, health care has made that leap in the form of telemedicine. Previously, a trip to the doctor was sometimes a day-long excursion that needed to be planned and prepared for a few days in advance. If your symptoms had cleared up by the time of your appointment, or even gotten worse, then you couldn’t accurately describe or show your doctor exactly what you were feeling or experiencing. With telemedicine, you can contact your doctor immediately, either when the symptoms flare up, or if you’re worried about them returning. No waiting around, no appointments; through this innovative new method of health care, you can engage a medical professional in a matter of moments, from the comfort of your home.

At its core, the U.S. health care system is largely inefficient. So much time is wasted, not only for patients, but for doctors too. Mountains of money are pumped into the system every year, by government and patients alike, but there’s no clear way of determining if all this cash impetus is being put to good use. Every year, more money seems to be applied in an effort to fix the problem, but there’s no clear-cut way of quantifying the results, if any. Telemedicine shifts the health care paradigm to one where the focus is on the patient; as a result, it becomes consumer-orientated, and much more effective because of it. By supplying health care to the country on patients’ terms, telemedicine apps and providers connect people with all sorts of health care professionals, any day of the week, day or night.

All in all, telemedicine looks to be the way of the future for health care.

Patients also now have a choice of specialists. Previously, they were stuck with the specialist recommended to them by their family doctor, which was often the one nearest to them physically. This could work out great if the specialist was well-regarded; but not so great if they weren’t. For people living in cities, this wasn’t the end of the world, as there was usually more than one specialist available to them. But for people living in remote areas, they would have no choice but to visit the only specialist available to them, regardless of their skill or reputation. Telemedicine opens up the field and lets people choose the specialist that suits them the best. Patients are no longer constrained by physical boundaries, and can engage with any specialist in the country, or even the world. Considering the host of conditions that require intimate knowledge, this is a major disruption for the health care industry, and completely changes the scope of the approach for patients and doctors alike.

There are also huge financial savings to be made via telemedicine, on both sides of the line. Patients can save money by not having to travel to visit a doctor and having reduced visitation costs, as doctors can fit more appointments into their working days. For physicians and hospital staff, administration costs go way down thanks to telemedicine, and they can also engage their patients in home analysis using the latest apps and digital aids, allowing them to get a clearer picture of the patient’s condition without having to closely monitor them personally. All in all, telemedicine looks to be the way of the future for health care, as digital dominates and transforms the landscape of many of our key industries. Patients and doctors can look forward to many more positive and beneficial disruptions!

With advancements in technology, gone are the days when you would need to rush to the doctor anytime you had a medical question or concern. Today, you can video chat with your physician from the comfort of your home – saving you lots of time (and money!). So, why should telemedicine only work for humans? In fact, using telehealth measures to help care for your pet is starting to get even easier. There are several companies that are changing the game by introducing veterinary telemedicine services to pet owners. Interested in finding out how to help better care for your furry friend with telemedicine? Read on for more info!

Anytime your pet starts showing symptoms – whether it’s limping from a fall or vomiting after eating something they shouldn’t have – you’re left wondering if you should pack them up in the car and head straight to your vet’s office. Some animals can get extremely agitated when they have to be transported in a carrier or take a ride in the car, so even getting them to the office can be a hassle. If you live in a rural area, the aspect of traveling to a nearby vet’s office can be even more challenging. Then, once you’re at the office, you’ll likely spend quite a bit of time in the waiting room. After meeting with your vet, you’re probably going to face having to pay an expensive bill (whether your pet needed much treatment or not). Needless to say, the whole experience can end up making you feel overwhelmed and frustrated.

Who said the conveniences of telemedicine can only be enjoyed by humans?! Pet care is the newest entry to the realm of telemedicine.

Luckily, there are several companies who are starting to revolutionize how you can get help from a vet. If you live in the San Francisco Bay area in California, you can get access to Fuzzy Pet Health Connect, a telemedicine service that works with a smartphone app to give you access to an on-demand vet 24/7. It works by letting you send text, pictures, and videos to a licensed vet at any time. They’ll respond in real-time with detailed instructions and advice on how to care for your pet and their particular problem. They’ll also advise you if they think your pet should visit an in-person vet for the best treatment. Even if you have questions that are not medical, Fuzzy Pet Health can help by offering advice on behavior or training issues too. The best part is that it’s only $10 a month!

In an interview with TechCrunch, Fuzzy Pet Health co-founder Eric Palm says that this kind of on-demand help can allow for pet owners’ questions to be answered quickly, without needing to visit a vet in person. “It turns out that 80 percent of the time when people think there’s an emergency issue, it’s not actually critical. We can triage – we can share pictures and videos, and that’s really helpful.”

But these plans aren’t just for medical emergencies. They also include an annual supply of flea, tick, and heartworm preventative medications and core vaccines. You can even get diagnostics for heartworm and fecal testing every six months and microchipping for your pet. One of the plans even includes two wellness checkups that are conducted in your home! If your pet is older or has chronic conditions, one plan option offers blood panels every six months and a cold laser therapy treatment, so no matter what your pet needs, they’ll be taken care of.

Thanks to telemedicine, concerns you would once have made a vet trip to get checked out can now be dealt with from your home.

Fuzzy Pet Health is seeing great results with the service. Co-founder and lead vet Dr. Robert Trimble said in a statement, “The average pet parent goes to the vet only 1.6 times a year, while our members get in touch with us roughly once a month. We’re excited to expand telemedicine across the country, and provide pet parents the peace of mind and education that come with easy and unlimited access to high-quality care.” While the service isn’t widely available yet, the company is thinking of expanding to other major cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

There are other companies, like Petriage, that also use a mobile app to give pet owners direct access to expert vet advice. If you have a good working relationship with your vet, there are sites like Televet that offer direct communication with the vet your pet is already seeing.

Telemedicine for pets is pretty new, and there’s definitely room to grow. At this time, there are laws in most states that say that telehealth vet services can’t diagnose or prescribe medications without in-person vet visits. There aren’t these types of laws for human health care, so hopefully, lawmakers will see how helpful and convenient these services are and do away with these restrictions. Palm says that there is progress already being made. “Each state has its own Veterinary Medical Board, and there are active discussions on most of these boards on how to relax the rules around telemedicine,” Palm states.

So, as these services grow more popular, you’ll be able to take care of most of your vet business through convenient, time and money-saving mobile apps and video chats, no matter where you’re living.

There is a clear solution to helping the U.S. population become healthier. With advancements in technology, telemedicine is quickly becoming the answer for more accessible care, cheaper costs, and more effective treatments. There are countless reasons why telemedicine can help with patient care, and even more why these options could benefit the public at large by going mainstream.

Congress passed a federal budget earlier this year that allows for a major expansion of telemedicine benefits for Medicare patients (including those with chronic conditions). Hopefully, this will encourage further steps in the future that support telemedicine measures. Increased access to telemedicine options means that doctors can better treat their patients with a variety of conditions, including diabetes, obstetrics, behavioral health issues, and more. Here’s a look at the reasons why it’s crucial for telemedicine to be made even more available to U.S. citizens.

Bringing telemedicine to the mainstream could have many benefits for health care in the U.S.

1. Better access to health care, regardless of location

Before the advent of telemedicine, patients were forced to limit their care to their local doctors. Those who lived in rural areas were often unable to receive proper care simply because of their location. However, with telemedicine options (which include remote video chats with physicians), all patients can have access to the treatment they need, without having to worry about getting themselves to a distant doctor’s office or hospital. Telemedicine can help ensure that every individual has access to health care, no matter where they’re living.

2. More access to specialists

In recent years, telemedicine options have started to allow patients to get opinions from specialists in any location (no matter how far from the patient’s residence). Treatment options are no longer relegated to whichever doctor is closest. This is an especially great benefit for people who live in remote areas or who have rare conditions that cannot be treated by local physicians. The best possible specialist to help with treatment is now always available through telemedicine communications.

3. Lowered health care costs

Telemedicine options are often cheaper for patients because doctors don’t have to charge for office fees, and patients don’t have to pay for transportation to get to an office. Additionally, aside from patient costs, telemedicine can also lower health care costs in general, which can help make health care more affordable for everyone.

Getting treatment during flu season could be made much easier through telemedicine.

4. Better care during flu season

The past several years have seen pretty serious flu outbreaks in the U.S. Telemedicine can help provide better care by allowing for ill patients to connect with physicians from their homes (through their smartphones, tablets, or computers). Some drugstores even provide kiosks that can connect patients with medical help without them having to go to a hospital. Instead of filling up emergency rooms (and risking infecting more people), patients can be treated without having to leave their homes.

5. Increased access to eye health options

Many health care companies are using telemedicine to help provide better access to eye doctors. The NewYork-Presbyterian company provides a tele-ophthalmology mobile unit that travels around some of New York City’s less served neighborhoods. Medical staff, equipped with state-of-the-art imaging devices, are able to provide screenings for eye diseases and vision issues to a variety of individuals. Patients are then able to chat in real-time with an ophthalmologist through a video screen. These types of programs can help individuals get proper eye care, which they might not otherwise have access to.

6. More tools to fight strokes

Telemedicine can also help to better diagnose and treat strokes. In order to stave off lifelong disability or death, strokes must be diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible. There are companies like NewYork-Presbyterian with Telestroke Initiatives that connect specialists immediately to patients through live videoconferencing. The initiative also works to have brain scans taken from the ambulances, which are then delivered digitally to the specialists at the hospital. This helps to get the patient started on the right protocol immediately, which could be extremely valuable to a stroke patient. If other companies instituted initiatives like this one, many more patients could benefit.

In-person doctor’s visits will always exist, but telemedicine can help take some of the pressure off for both doctors and patients.

7. Spend less time waiting

Instead of spending tons of time in a doctor’s office waiting room or the lobby of a hospital, telemedicine options allow patients to set up appointments directly with a physician (which means no waiting time). Some programs are setting up options within hospitals’ emergency departments, where patients can consult with a doctor through a video chat – this can result in a decrease in waiting from two to three hours to 35 to 40 minutes.

8. Less crowded ERs

With more people using telemedicine options, emergency rooms will be less crowded (and your wait time at an ER will be much shorter). People who would normally head to the ER can instead consult a physician from their home. This means that people who come to the hospital with life-threatening or very serious injuries or illnesses won’t have to wait as long and can get treated much more quickly.

All of these reasons lead to the conclusion that telemedicine not only benefits the individual patient, but also the country’s health care as a whole. Although there will still always be a need for in-person doctor’s visits, telemedicine options can help revolutionize and improve our health care system.

Telemedicine has been growing in popularity in a big way over the past decade. With the advent of super-fast internet and super-powerful personal mobile devices, it has become possible to use telemedicine to meet more and more different types of medical needs remotely. Due to the rise of telemedicine, there has been a decrease in the need for people to use their local doctor’s surgeries. Today, illnesses that would have necessitated a visit to your local doctor in bygone years can be treated remotely using telemedicine.

Will telemedicine ultimately lead to the end of the local doctor’s surgery? It’s an interesting question. But the answer seems, as yet, unknowable. Telemedicine offers many big advantages over the local doctor’s surgery. But there are also some advantages that the local doctor’s surgery currently holds over telemedicine, and it’s hard to know if telemedicine will develop to the point where it catches up in these areas.

In this article, we will suggest some arguments for and against the motion that telemedicine will ultimately lead to the end of the local doctor’s surgery.

By necessity, most of the points in this article are speculation, as the future is (as always) impossible to predict with certainty.

There are arguments both for and against the idea that telemedicine will render physical doctor’s surgeries obsolete.

For:

Technology Is Improving Exponentially

Advances in technology are constant and relentless. Technological advances sweep humanity along with them. It’s often a case of “adapt or die (or at least become obsolete)”. Technology is sure to reach a point where telemedicine offers a service that is so efficient, so hyper-effective, so completely perfect, that the service offered at the local doctor’s surgery will never be able to compete.

Telemedicine Is a Huge Time Saver

As populations grow and cities become more crowded and hectic, people have busier schedules and less time to waste. Telemedicine already makes medical consultations much quicker, and as telemedicine technology improves, the time savings will only become more dramatic. Soon, a trip to the local doctor’s surgery will seem like an unforgivably uneconomical use of time. This could result in the local doctor’s surgery going the way of the dinosaurs.

The Potential For Human Error Will Become an Unacceptable Risk

As technology gets quicker, smarter, and more advanced, it will become far more reliable and less error-prone than human beings. When technology reaches the point at which it is much less likely to make a mistake than any human, then going to a doctor’s surgery to have a consultation with a flesh-and-blood doctor may come to been seen as a risk not worth taking when something as important as the health of yourself or your children is at stake. Telemedicine will become better as technology becomes better, and when it reaches a point of near-perfect reliability, the local doctor’s surgery could easily come to be considered a “dangerous” place.

Cost Differences

Our smartphones contain a computer more powerful than the computer that took Neil Armstrong’s spaceship to the moon. As technology advances, it becomes easier and cheaper to mass-produce incredibly advanced machines. Soon we will have such advanced technology at our disposal for such a cheap price that telemedicine services will cost us very little. When the cost difference between visiting your local doctor’s surgery and using a telemedicine app becomes large enough, nobody will use their local doctor’s surgery anymore.

Certain treatments can only be delivered in person, not through telemedicine.

Against:

People Inherently Prefer Face-to-Face Communication

It’s in our DNA to enjoy and prefer face-to-face communication. When it comes to issues as important as health, many people will always prefer the reassuring experience of being treated in-person by their friendly local doctor. Thoroughly hardwired for in-person contact as we are, it is very possible that some people will never fully trust technology when it comes to health. And of course, mobile electronic devices do not give lollipops to anxious toddlers who have come down with mumps! The fact that humans value a personal touch so highly may mean there will always be a place for the local doctor’s surgery.

Certain Medical Conditions May Never Be Fully Treatable Remotely

Many conditions can already be fully diagnosed and treated using telemedicine, and more and more will become fully treatable using telemedicine as the technology improves. But it seems highly possible that there will always be certain treatments, such as various forms of physical therapy and vaccinations, that require an in-person visit to a local doctor’s surgery.

Technology Will Never Be 100% Reliable

Planes still fall out of the sky, the internet still gets frustratingly slow at busy times of the day, iPads stop working for no apparent reason, high-tech machines of all types still malfunction. Sure, technology is improving all the time, but it is still far from perfectly reliable, and there is no reason to believe that perfect reliability will ever be achieved. This means there will always be a need for the local doctor’s surgery.

New Technologies Often Co-Exist Alongside More Antiquated Versions of Themselves

E-readers have not caused the demise of paper books, lots of people still prefer to listen to albums on vinyl, many patients still choose Freudian psychotherapy over Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and most businesses still choose flesh-and-blood accountants over robo-accountants to organize their books. So, even accepting the superior service that telemedicine provides in many areas, there will probably still be people who prefer the experience of visiting their local doctor’s surgery.

It’s certainly an interesting debate, and there are valid points for and against. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section.

Telemedicine will likely result in a vast array of consequences – some exciting and positive, some challenging and even negative – for professionals who work in many different areas of the medical field. The future is very uncertain as technology, and therefore telemedicine, continues to develop and improve at break-neck speed. Many medical professionals will need to retrain, adapt, and evolve in order to cope. The requirements and skills to work (and flourish) within the medical industry will change. Some careers will hugely benefit, other careers will come to an unexpectedly early end. Here are some ways in which telemedicine will change the lives of medical professionals in the future.

Certain Jobs Will Become Obsolete

One of the most dramatic effects of telemedicine on the lives of medical professionals could be that some of them will perhaps end up losing their current jobs. As telemedicine technology improves, many positions within the medical industry may well become obsolete. Traditionally crucial jobs, such as doctor’s surgery receptionists and various types of nurse practitioner, may no longer be needed as more and more consultations are done remotely using telemedicine. Other medical industry jobs may end up being done better (without the possibility of human error) by telemedicine devices or apps. For medical professionals in these positions, it will be necessary to retrain for other positions, either within the medical industry or in another field.

Less Crowding in Emergency Rooms

As telemedicine improves, one of the major benefits will be that ERs will become less busy. More and more patients with minor illnesses that would previously have reported to ER (such as anxiety attacks, heart palpitations, mild food poisoning, or minor sprains) will be diagnosed and treated remotely using telemedicine technology. This will be a great thing for medical professionals who work in ERs, as it will mean that they can work in increasingly calmer and less crowded surroundings. Medical professionals will be able to dedicate more time to treating acutely ill patients who arrive in the ER with life-threatening conditions instead of wasting time dealing with only slightly ill patients who don’t actually need face-to-face emergency treatment.

Communication methods between physicians and their patients are set to improve through telemedicine.

More Efficient Communication With Patients

Telemedicine will make it much easier for medical professionals to have efficient communication with their patients. Frequent, high-fidelity, comprehensive communication between a physician and their patients will become easier and easier to achieve as telemedicine improves in the future.

Easier to Market to Patients in a Wider Catchment Area

For many medical professionals, improvements in telemedicine technology will massively increase the number of potential patients that they can market their services to. Traditionally, the people physicians could market their services to was limited by geographical proximity. Using telemedicine, a medical professional will be able to work with people on more and more complex consultations from much greater distances. This will particularly benefit medical professionals who offer elective procedures, such as plastic surgeons and aesthetic dentists. The ease with which preoperative consultations for these types of procedures can be done remotely using telemedicine will mean that medical professionals can market to patients all over the world.

Increased Requirement to be Tech-Savvy

For most of medical history, there has been at least some onus on doctors and physicians to stay up-to-date with advances in medical knowledge. In more recent times, and in most fields and jurisdictions, there has been a regulatory requirement that medical professionals undertake regular retraining in order for them to stay abreast of advances and modern best practices. As telemedicine becomes a more and more popular and important part of the overall field of medicine, medical professionals will need to work harder to stay abreast of changes in modern technology. Being tech-savvy will be increasingly crucial for medical professionals of every ilk. Needing to stay up-to-date with advances in technology as well as medical knowledge will mean that in future medical professionals will need to undertake more constant learning and reskilling than ever before.

Medical practitioners will be required to be even more tech-savvy as telemedicine use grows.

See a Higher Volume of Patients

One of the major advantages of telemedicine over traditional medicine is that telemedicine is far more time-efficient. A telemedicine consultation can often be done in a fraction of the time that a face-to-face consultation would take. As telemedicine improves, more and more different types of consultation will be able to be done in less and less time. This means that the best medical professionals will be able to fit in more patient consultations than ever before. This may result in the most sought-after physicians having more patients and the less sought-after practitioners losing out on patients, and perhaps ultimately their jobs.

Improved Lifestyle Mobility and Schedule Flexibility

Telemedicine will allow many medical professionals to do a lot more of their work remotely. This will allow many people who work within the field to have much greater flexibility within their schedule and also allow them to work from different locations. Increasingly, medical professionals will be able to pick when and from where in the world they work. Physicians performing consultations, using telemedicine, from exotic beaches while they sip cocktails (non-alcoholic, of course) may become common!

Telemedicine is a brand-new initiative redefining the way patients in the U.S. approach health care. It was actually introduced in the 1960s as a way of connecting remotely located patients with medical professionals via phones, and despite not really resembling its former self any longer, the name seems to have stuck. In its modern incarnation, telemedicine is based entirely around digital technology, a field that has witnessed unprecedented development in recent decades. It is now possible to communicate with anyone in the world in a matter of minutes; on top of that, we can now stream our favorite films, television shows, and music instantaneously. Telemedicine provides this same on-demand approach to health care, allowing patients to connect with doctors at their own leisure, and facilitating clinical visits in the comfort of the patient’s own home.

Telemedicine is a brand-new initiative redefining the way patients in the U.S. approach health care.

There are numerous benefits to telemedicine for both patients and doctors alike. In the first instance, it saves both parties time. Patients no longer have to plan whole days around trips to their doctor’s office; for many people, it takes a lot of effort to visit the doctor, and this problem is only compounded if you happen to live far away from a medical professional. On the flip side, not having to schedule patients for extended visits mean that doctors can see more of them during their working day, as well as saving on costs of admin work. They can also enlist the help of the patient for diagnostic experiments, via the use of particular apps or regular check-ins. This enables doctors to get a broader view of the patient’s symptoms, and also provides peace of mind for the patient; we all know that symptoms never seem to manifest during those 20 minutes we’re inside the doctor’s office!

But that’s not to say that the rise of telemedicine eclipses the need for face-to-face visits with a doctor. Telemedicine is a fantastic tool to be used in conjunction with consultations, particularly at the start of treatment, where patients are mostly concerned with explaining their symptoms to their new doctor. But it is not a replacement for traditional medicine as such. Thus, the question becomes: when exactly should you choose telemedicine over regular doctor visits? This is a crucial question for patients and potential patients to ask themselves, and knowing the correct answer can make all the difference for your medical treatment.

The main advantage of telemedicine, and the one that will likely be the deciding factor of how it’s utilized by individual patients, is its on-demand nature. In this way, it follows in the footsteps of platforms like Netflix and Spotify, which provide the same service for films and music respectively. If you have a pressing or concerning medical problem, telemedicine can help you get a diagnosis quickly; for example, if you have symptoms that come on suddenly and are worrying you, you can easily look to telemedicine in order to receive a fast diagnosis. Obviously, this is not a replacement for the emergency room, and if the symptoms are particularly debilitating, that’s the first place you should head. But telemedicine can be remarkably effective for those symptoms that fall in between – ones that you don’t want to leave any later, but aren’t serious enough to take to the hospital.

If you have a pressing or concerning (but not life-threatening) medical problem, telemedicine can help you get a diagnosis quickly.

Telemedicine can also be useful for a second opinion, or if you don’t have complete faith in your local doctor or physicist. It helps patients branch out and connect with doctors all over the country, or even the world. This means that patients aren’t tied to their local health care provider, and have a number of options available when selecting a specialist from a family doctor referral. This can provide great peace of mind for many patients, regardless of their condition. When it comes to themselves and their families, every person wants the very best health care they can get their hands on.

Another time to use telemedicine over regular doctor visits is when you’re ordering or reordering a prescription of some kind. We all know what a hassle it is to return to the doctor’s office every time a a prescription needs refilling – but with telemedicine, you can avail of some home delivery prescriptions ordered from the comfort of your living room. Providing you suffer from a qualifying condition, sites like MMJ Recs will dispatch a medical marijuana identification card to you, meaning you can utilize the medicine. Emotional support animals are another form of progressive health care sweeping the nation, relieving patients from symptoms of common mental health disorders. To avail of an emotional support animal, you require what’s known as an ESA letter, which you can also procure via telemedicine, on a site like Moosh.

All in all, telemedicine can be a great asset in the field of health care, and the more patients get familiar with it, the more they’ll trust and use it. Hundreds of telemedicine-based apps are available on a range of devices, so if you’re interested in seeing how telemedicine can benefit you, download some and start trying them out today!

Over 15 million people in the US have been diagnosed with social anxiety. It is a debilitating condition that can greatly impact a person’s social life, relationships, and career. For those with severe symptoms, it can be difficult to even leave the house. Social anxiety can also lead people to shy away from getting help because of the intensity of their symptoms. However, with improvements in telemedicine, online therapy is becoming the answer for many people who want relief from their symptoms. Here’s a look at how telemedicine can help those suffering from social anxiety to get effective, potentially life-changing treatment.

Telemedicine has come a long way in assisting people with mental health issues and disorders.

What is social anxiety?

There are many misconceptions out there that individuals with social anxiety are just “nervous” people. However, the condition goes much further than someone just being apprehensive about meeting new people or speaking in front of a large group (because who isn’t anxious about those things?). Rather, social anxiety is a chronic mental health condition where social interactions cause irrational anxiety. The emotional effects of this anxiety can differ in intensity, but usually the thoughts revolve around the person fearing that they’re going to be judged. There’s often a tendency to avoid certain activities or people in case of embarrassment or due to fear of failure. Many people have feelings of anxiety before and during events, or just when they’re out in public.

Social anxiety can manifest as intrusive, racing thoughts about being judged or the possibility of looking foolish in front of others. But just as upsetting as these thoughts can be, social anxiety sufferers can also experience intense physical symptoms including blushing, a fast heart rate, sweating, upset stomach and nausea, trouble breathing, dizziness, and muscle tension (among other things) that accompany these thoughts.

Although social anxiety disorder can develop at any age, it’s pretty common for individuals to start noticing these symptoms around adolescence – particularly because this is when teens are faced with big transitions (like entering high school and meeting new friends). There is a tendency for this condition to go undiagnosed because so many individuals consider their nervousness to just be part of their personality. However, the condition can become debilitating when people go out of their way to avoid any or all social situations. Some people can even develop agoraphobia, which prevents them from leaving their homes because of their overwhelming fear of being out in public.

Accessing mental health services from the safe space of your own home is a huge benefit of telemedicine.

What are the benefits of using online therapy?

There are many reasons online therapy or other telemedicine options can help with the treatment of social anxiety. One of the main benefits is that people with social anxiety are often apprehensive about leaving their homes. Online therapy (whether it’s with a licensed therapist or just an online support group) means that individuals can seek help without having to venture outside. For those who are embarassed by their symptoms or by needing to seek help, telemedicine provides them with the privacy of not having to go outside their home for treatment, so they won’t have to worry about running into people they know.

Another major benefit for using online therapy is the ability to save money. Many online therapists can charge less for their services because they don’t have to spend money on renting an office. There are also less costs for regular office fees. A reduction in therapy costs can be a significant motivator for people to get help when they otherwise wouldn’t.

One other factor is that some people with social anxiety have increased symptoms when they’re around crowds of people – this means that taking public transportation to a therapy appointment can often be a stressful, upsetting experience. So, with telemedicine options, individuals can seek help from their homes without having to worry about traveling to get treatment.

There are many online services people can use to seek treatment for their social anxiety.

Where can someone go for online help?

There is an increasing number of places online where social anxiety sufferers can go for help. One of the easiest ways is for the individual to first contact their health insurance company. They can help suggest any therapists in the network that offer online or video chat services. If the insurance company is unable to provide any good recommendations, there are other online platforms that specialize in online therapy. One great option is Learn To Live, which offers treatment options for social anxiety (as well as depression and insomnia) all on an online platform. Free assessments are provided to see if the treatment would be beneficial, and then a therapist is assigned to the patient. The treatment offered is CBT-based (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) that works to help the patient develop techniques and tools to better help them manage their symptoms. Web-based CBT has proven to be very effective in the treatment of social anxiety. Another treatment option is TalkSpace, which offers not only video chat therapy but also text messaging therapy (which can run as low as $49 a week – much less than traditional in-person sessions!).

If someone is looking for support with social anxiety but doesn’t think they need to work specifically with a therapist, there are also online support groups that can be very beneficial. These groups (including ones found on Facebook) can provide an understanding network of people who can relate and help provide suggestions regarding social anxiety symptoms. These online resources are often easier to fit into daily life than in-person groups.

Telemedicine and online therapy options can help provide a great deal of benefits for those suffering from social anxiety disorder. For help with the management and alleviation of symptoms, research these options for effective, convenient, and less costly treatment.

Telemedicine has been taking the medical field by storm in recent years, introducing patients to a whole new realm of health care, accessible direct from their homes. Since the smartphone revolution, many of our industries have found a new lease of digital life online, and health care was bound to follow sooner or later. Telemedicine is the practice of treating patients through the use of telecommunications; in the past, this referred specifically to telephones, as telemedicine was actually implemented to a primitive degree in the 1960s. These days, however, it refers to any device that can connect people remotely, including smartphones, laptops, and tablets. As well as traditional medicine, which focuses on physical ailments, telemedicine psychiatry has also been introduced as a way to connect patients with their doctors or psychiatrists. The question is: is it as effective?

Before talking about the telemedicine side of things, it’s important to make a distinction between psychiatry and traditional medicine. The latter deals with physical disease, while the former deals with disorders of the mind. These are usually a lot harder to quantify, with nuances that differ on a person-to-person basis. With a physical ailment, the cause and treatment path are more often than not easily identifiable after a few tests. This is not always the case with psychiatric illnesses, which can lie undetected by a patient for many months or years. Even when a psychiatrist gets to grips with a patient’s specific symptoms and disorder, a treatment plan might take a long time and require a trial-and-error approach.

Potential patients are reluctant to go to the doctor, even if they realize they’re suffering from a form of mental disorder.

There is also a stigma attached to psychiatric illnesses that hasn’t gone away. It’s only in the last few decades that mental disorders have been recognized, and taken and treated seriously; they’re most definitely starting on the back foot when it comes to the medical field at large. Potential patients are reluctant to go to the doctor, even if they realize they’re suffering from a form of mental disorder. This leads to huge cases of untreated disorders that are left for the sufferer to deal with alone, or ultimately get worse.

In this way, telemedicine psychiatry is actually extremely effective at breaking down the first barrier for potential mental health patients. It allows patients to touch base with a mental health professional from the comfort of their own home. Visiting a psychiatrist’s office can be daunting and intimidating to first-time patients; they’re entering an entirely new world, where they’re expected to muse on their deepest darkest feelings to complete stranger. Telemedicine psychiatry takes some of the edge off this intimidating initiation. By contacting the doctors from home, it becomes easier to manage and to deal with. This is also one of the overall progressive features of telemedicine as a whole, not just psychiatric telemedicine, and possibly the biggest advantage in the whole initiative.

It’s especially effective with the psychiatric branch of telemedicine, however. While most patients will need to go and speak with their doctor face-to-face at some point in time, at the beginning of the relationship (which is all-important when it comes to psychiatry), telemedicine can serve both doctor and patients extremely well. An added benefit that doctors have claimed to be particularly useful is that telemedicine affords them the chance to see inside their patients’ homes and daily lives a little, which can aid them in getting to grips with the nuances of that specific patient. Not to mention it’s a cheaper and quicker way to communicate for both patients and doctors alike, meaning that doctors can see more people in a day, and patients don’t have to revolve their entire schedules around a trip to their doctor’s office.

Telemedicine psychiatry is extremely effective at breaking down the first barrier for potential mental health patients.

Another primary use of telemedicine for both the traditional and psychiatric is that patients in remote areas can easily access care. This was one of the main reasons for telemedicine’s introduction back in the sixties, and one that remains important to this day. With the aid of digital technology, we can build on its original use and adapt to 2018, as patients are no longer limited to the nearest available specialist or psychiatrist. They can search all over the country for a doctor that meets their criteria and suits their needs, making the use of telemedicine progressive in both different fields. Patients are no longer limited by space in receiving the support they require, be it mental, physical, or both. They can even order certain types of medicine over the internet; medical marijuana has been proven to have a positive effect on both physical and mental ailments. Through sites like MMJ Recs, patients can order their medicine from the comfort of their living room.

Telemedicine is undoubtedly progressive on both fronts, but telemedicine psychiatry appears to come across as a little less progressive than its clinical counterpart, as patients requiring psychiatric care are often seen as longer-term projects than physical ailments. This is, in fact, not the case; psychiatric telemedicine is equally as progressive as regular telemedicine, and looks set to continue that trend long into the future.

Telemedicine – the marriage of medicine with modern telecommunications technology – is growing in popularity all the time. The advent of the internet and the explosion in technological innovation that it heralded has changed the world in so many ways. Many areas of day-to-day life have been thoroughly transformed by communications tech. Medicine is certainly one of these areas, and in myriad ways, health care provision looks totally different today than it did a mere decade ago. These changes have really benefited patients and health care professionals by making it possible to receive and deliver extremely effective health care in more efficient ways than ever before. Here are 7 reasons telemedicine is becoming so popular.

Constantly Improving Technology

The first reason telemedicine is becoming more and more popular is because the service provided is improving all the time. Every year, technology makes huge advances and so telemedicine provision gets better, quicker, and more effective. With the advent of newer, better telemedicine apps and more cutting-edge forms of technology, telemedicine provision is going from strength to strength. People have more options now than ever before and what can be achieved using telemedicine is more impressive than ever. Due to this ever-improving service, telemedicine is continuously getting more popular.

More Choice

A big reason for telemedicine’s ever-increasing popularity with patients is the fact that it opens up a vast world of choice for them. No longer is a person limited to consulting with one of a small group of health care professionals that just happen to be located near to where they live. Using telemedicine apps, people can choose to be treated by medical professionals located in any area of the country, or the world, no matter how far away. This means that people now have a vast amount of choice in who they deal with, and this increased choice is proving very popular with patients.

More People Choosing to Live “Off the Grid”

With the advent of the internet and ever-improving telecommunications technology, an increasing number of people are choosing to escape the rat-race by moving out of big, crowded cities and working remotely from smaller towns and villages, rural areas, and even wildernesses, both at home and abroad, where they can enjoy a more relaxed and laid-back lifestyle. For this small (but ever-growing) army of digital nomads and remote workers, telemedicine is proving to be an invaluable way to receive the health care they need while living and working in a small, remote or foreign location that may not have many local health care options.

Time Savings

One of the main reasons for the increase in popularity of telemedicine is, of course, the fact that it is a huge time-saver. Consulting with a health care professional from the comfort of your own home or office using telemedicine takes far less time than traveling to a doctor’s surgery, clinic, or hospital for a traditional, face-to-face consultation. In today’s busy world, many people have very hectic schedules, so any way to save time is very valuable. With improving technology, telemedicine services are only getting quicker and quicker, so more and more people are choosing to avail of telemedicine as an excellent time-saving tool.

Money Savings

Telemedicine can be a lot cheaper than traditional medicine. With more choice comes increased competition. Due to the larger market that telemedicine opens up, competition is increased and this forces prices down. A small cabal of doctors in a small town can charge a higher price for their services, but if telemedicine is increasing competition by providing the consumer with access to medical professionals from anywhere in the country, then the price of all health care will tend to be forced down.

Avoid Doctors’ Surgeries

More and more people are happily utilizing the opportunity to avoid doctors’ surgeries. Telemedicine allows people to stay away from hospitals, clinics, and surgeries and the germs and viruses that these places often harbor. It is not uncommon to enter a hospital with one illness and pick up a new virus while being treated in the hospital. Avoiding this unpleasant possibility is very attractive to a lot of people. Telemedicine is providing people with the opportunity to stay comfortable and virus-free in their own home.

Convenient For Patients With Mobility Problems

For patients with disabilities or mobility problems, getting to a hospital or surgery can be a major inconvenience. Telemedicine is proving to be more and more popular with people in this situation, as it allows them to consult quickly and effectively with health care professionals without needing to go through the hassle of traveling to a destination that may or may not be disabled-user-friendly.