The biggest complaint that people seem to have about modern life is that it’s too busy and crazy. In today’s world, we are being pulled in so many different directions and it can be so difficult to find a moment to engage in self-care. With professional responsibilities becoming ever more present in all facets of our lives, and social media ensuring that are social lives are broadcast performances, it can be hard to take care of ourselves at a basic level. That’s where telemedicine can help.

Trying to find time to visit the doctor can prove impossible to do alongside working full-time. Most doctor’s clinics only open during office hours and they can be inflexible in accommodating working professionals. Similarly, not all jobs offer paid leave to attend medical appointments, so sometimes you may literally be asked to choose between money and health. However, there are many new advances in telemedicine ensuring that busy professionals are having their health care needs properly met.

Telemedicine is not a new phenomenon, but it is experiencing a new renaissance thanks to smartphone technology. Simply put, telemedicine is the delivery of health or diagnostic advice via the means of telecommunications technology. It has been used since the advent of the emergence of telecommunications technology, usually to serve people in war-torn remote places, but it is now far easier to access thanks to smartphones.

As a busy professional, you’re probably already using smartphone and tablet technology constantly – why not put it to use in your health care, too?

While it may seem odd to use your smartphone to access this kind of technology, it really couldn’t be easier. Firstly, depending on the service you pick, you can either make a formal appointment or drop in to a virtual waiting room. When it comes time to see a doctor, you will be connected via the camera on your smartphone. After this, it’s just the same as seeing a doctor in person. They will ask why you have come for an appointment, talk you through your symptoms, and ask you to move your camera to look at any physical symptoms, if you have any. Then they may order further tests or send a prescription to you. This all happens from anywhere that you happen to be. It couldn’t be easier.

As well as working around your busy schedule, telemedical doctors will make your life even easier by doing the hard work for you. If they feel that you need further tests, they will send a letter to you, detailing what needs to be done so that you can take it to a specialist. If you require a prescription, they can have it sent to your local pharmacy, so that your medication will be ready and waiting for you when you go to pick it up, saving you even more time. In today’s busy world, what could be better?

The key advantage of telemedicine is that its main purpose is to make the lives of its users easier. As well as the advantages listed above, telemedicine also empowers its users to take charge of their medical histories. Usually, it can be a tenuous and difficult process to access your medical records from a traditional doctor’s clinic. However, with telemedical providers, your records are stored centrally, in a way that they can be easily accessed by patients if needed. This also means that if you happen to see a different doctor, they can easily access your records to provide you with the best care possible in light of your medical history.

Using telemedicine instead of visiting a doctor in-person can save busy professionals so much valuable time.

If you commute a long way to work, have limited mobility, or live far away from your doctor, telemedicine can truly revolutionize your life. Instead of messing up your daily routine to grab ten minutes with a traditional doctor, wait until you get back to the comfort of your home to grab a consultation with a telemedical doctor. You don’t have to mess up your daily routine, and you won’t lose any of your precious leisure time by diverting yourself to the doctor’s office, even if you’re lucky enough to get an appointment outside of office hours.

The truth is that telemedicine is truly changing the lives of busy professionals. We live in a world where we have higher and higher expectations on us from work thanks to mobile technology, but this technology can also help us to make our lives more efficient. Why wait in a germy doctor’s waiting room when you can chat to a fully qualified doctor from the comfort and privacy of your own home? Why traipse from doctor’s office to pharmacy to wait to have a prescription filled when your telemedical doctor can make sure that your medication is ready and waiting for you when you get to the pharmacy? Take back your life and your personal time. The power is in your hands and on your phone!

The increased availability and popularity of telemedicine services across the United States is great news for many people and groups. It is a particularly good development for emotional support animal patients. Over the last few years telemedicine has truly revolutionized support for ESA owners, as well people who wish to become ESA owners. It is a very exciting time to be an emotional support animal patient!

Let’s talk about some of the ways in which telemedicine is making it easier than ever before to become an ESA owner and enjoy the wonderful benefits emotional support pet ownership brings.

Telemedicine refers to any type of medicine or medical consultation that is done remotely using modern communications technology. Communication between a health care professional and a patient via smartphone, tablet, laptop, or any other type of mobile device (usually using the internet) is called telemedicine. Super-fast broadband and highly powerful modern computer technology have made it easer than ever before for a patient and their health care provider (who can now be located anywhere in the entire country, or even abroad) to have fast, reliable, high-fidelity, and secure consultations.

Telemedicine brings a whole host of benefits to emotional support animal patients. For those of you who are still in the dark about this health care phenomenon, an ESA is an animal companion that provides company, friendship, love, and a calming influence to a patient who suffers from some form of mental illness. Many different psychological conditions qualify a person to become an emotional support animal owner. Depression, anxiety, PTSD, phobias (such as fear of flying), chronic stress, acute loneliness, or even suicidal thoughts are mental health conditions that qualify a person to become an emotional support pet owner. ESAs have special rights under American federal law. A certified ESA can live with its owner in rental accommodation that is otherwise “no pets allowed.” It can also travel with its owner in the cabin of a commercial airplane. In order to become an emotional support animal owner, a patient needs to get a letter from a registered mental health professional stating that the patient would benefit from owning an emotional support pet.

There are so many benefits to emotional support animals, and thanks to telemedicine, more and more people are able to experience these benefits.

An emotional support animal letter can be acquired by doing a consultation with a registered mental health practitioner, such as Moosh, online or over the phone. For many people, due to their specific life circumstances, getting their ESA letter via a telemedicine consultation is a much easier and better option than going through the time-consuming rigmarole of attending a practitioner’s office in-person.

Getting an emotional support animal letter after having a telemedicine consultation is much easier for the many ESA patients who live in remote parts of the country. For some people, getting to their nearest mental health practitioner requires a long journey by road or even by plane. From some very remote places, a journey to visit a health care provider in person could take an entire day or more. Telemedicine is a lifesaver for these patients.

Some ESA patients also suffer from mobility issues, either relating to their mental illness or not. Many people who suffer with PTSD are also amputees or otherwise long-term disabled. These folks, even with the use of a disabled parking permit, can often still find getting around pretty difficult. For these people, being able to do their ESA consultation over the phone or online is a godsend.

For people whose local mental health practitioner is very busy and has a long waiting list, it can also be a much quicker process to get their support pet consultation done using telemedicine.

Getting a certified support pet has never been easier than in today’s age of technology and telemedicine.

Some folks are just a little bit picky about who they want to discuss their mental health problems with. If they live in a small town in which “everybody knows everybody,” they may prefer the increased privacy and anonymity that comes with consulting with a mental health professional in a separate and distant area via telemedicine.

For a great many ESA patients, it’s really just a matter of saving time. In the modern world a lot of us have very busy schedules, and if we can get a telemedicine consultation – that would usually take a few hours in person – done in 20 minutes online, that is a huge help and a service well worth seeking.

It is also possible to have a consultation with a vet using telemedicine, and for pretty much all of the reasons we’ve just stated (distance issues, more choice, time saving), many ESA patients find it more convenient to use telemedicine for their emotional pet’s veterinary needs.

So it certainly is the case that telemedicine is revolutionizing support for ESA patients. In so many ways, telemedicine is making life much easier for ESA owners, and their pets!

If you’re hearing the word “telemedicine” everywhere and wondering where this trend has come from, you’re not alone. Thanks to smartphone technology, telemedicine is making a massive impact upon the health care landscape and is truly revolutionizing the lives of patients. As well as bringing medical expertise to the comfort of patients’ homes, it offers convenience and value, and empowers patients to be able to make better informed decisions in relation to their health care.

Telemedicine has been around for as long as telecommunications technology has been. It can be defined as the use of telecommunication and information technology to convey medical advice and health care. Radios have been used to convey health care throughout the twentieth century, particularly in war environments. In the current climate, smartphones are making it easier than ever for doctors and other medical professionals to provide health care to patients over the phone using video chat facilities to provide a quick and easy avenue to health care for all kinds of patients.

Accessing medical care from the comfort of your own home has never been easier thanks to technology and telemedicine.

So how does a telemedical appointment even work? It’s way easier than you think. Usually, you’ll either make an appointment or log onto a website to get an appointment. If your medical professional is not immediately available, you’ll go to a virtual waiting room, where you’ll hang out until they’re ready to see you. As the consultation begins, you will discuss your issue with whoever you’re seeing. They may ask you a number of questions about your symptoms and lifestyle as they would in a face-to-face consultation. They will use the camera feature on your phone to do a video chat to enable the consultation. They may ask to see physical symptoms and will advise you on the best way to recover. If you require further physical testing, such as blood tests or X-rays, they can write a referral letter; if you need a prescription, they can send it directly to your pharmacy, saving you time and hassle.

Why are patients choosing telemedical appointments instead of in-person ones? Convenience is a huge issue. In today’s busy society, many doctor’s offices have chosen to not offer flexibility to patients who may not be able to get an appointment outside of office hours. If you can attend a consultation from the comfort of your own couch instead of schlepping to a random doctor’s office, why wouldn’t you? This is also a massive advantage for patients who have limited mobility, who may find it much easier to combine busy lives alongside a disability by choosing to partake in medical advice via telemedicine.

Another reason that telemedicine is becoming increasingly popular is that it is usually cheaper than going to a traditional doctor’s appointment. Due to fewer overheads, telemedical companies can usually offer incredibly competitive rates for their patients which traditional doctors may struggle to match. Many telemedical doctors work from home and so they don’t have to combine office costs alongside other charges associated with running an office. People are becoming far more conscious of their money, so it’s a no-brainer to pick telemedicine in this case.

If you have a smartphone, tablet, or computer, you can utilize all the benefits of telemedicine!

It is also often easier to access your medical information if you are a patient who uses telemedicine. Your records will usually be kept in a centralized database that can be easily accessed by the patient at any time. In a traditional doctor’s office, your records are usually not easily accessed and you have to submit a request to view them or to have them sent to another establishment. With telemedicine, you are empowered to view your own information and to make decisions based off what is in your records.

While the advantages of telemedicine are clear, it is also important to do your homework to ensure that you see a medical professional who is fully qualified to practice. It is far easier to exercise quality control when you see a doctor in person, so you shouldn’t be afraid to ask questions about the telemedicine company that you might use. Any reputable organization will be more than happy to provide you with whatever information that you need to put your mind at rest, so be wary of anyone who seems wary or skittish about providing standard information in relation to qualifications and regulations. Professionals will want their patients to be comfortable and luckily, most companies will be more than happy to do whatever it takes.

While you may be currently questioning why this phenomenon is so popular, once you start using telemedicine, you’ll wonder why you didn’t start earlier. Its ethos is that it is totally centered around patient comfort, confidentiality, and convenience, so it’s no wonder that it’s so popular. As technology progresses, telemedicine will too – so get in on the ground floor and watch how it changes the way that you interact with your doctor forever!

Emotional support animals, or ESAs, are often misunderstood in the media, but the truth is that they are an essential tool that can help people lessen the symptoms of their emotional or psychological conditions. Some people mistakenly feel that an emotional support animal is just a glorified pet, but these creatures can actually help to treat conditions such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, and panic attacks. The truth is that as well as being pets, emotional support animals offer a unique form of support to their owners that allows them to live their best possible lives.

The problem with getting treatment from an emotional support animal is that many people who would benefit from them are self-conscious about seeking treatment and are unsure of the best people to speak to in order to get their pets certified. The good news is that, thanks to telemedicine, the process has never been easier.

Telemedicine is the process of delivering health or diagnostic advice through telecommunications technology. While it is experiencing a boom now through the advent of smartphones, it has been used in many guises since telecommunications has been invented. Thanks to smartphones, more and more patients are using telecommunications to access excellent health care, often at more convenience and at more affordable prices.

Emotional support animals can be an amazing form of therapy and treatment for people with emotional disorders.

So, how can you use telemedicine to get an emotional support animal? Well, first you need to know how emotional support animals become certified. To qualify as an emotional support animal, your pet needs an official document called an emotional support animal letter. This can only be obtained from a qualified medical professional, but the good news is that telemedicine completely facilitates you getting your ESA letter.

The first step is that you either make an appointment or “drop in” to an online telemedicine clinic (such as Moosh). You may have to wait to see a doctor in a virtual waiting room, but once you’re in with a medical professional, it’s just like seeing a regular doctor in person. You will use the camera on your phone to speak to the doctor and explain why you need an emotional support animal. They will ask about your condition and how the pet supports you, and you’ll be given an opportunity to discuss the ways in which your pet could act as an emotional support animal and to get advice from the medical professional. Then, if you are deemed suitable, the doctor will provide you with an emotional support animal letter, which will act as a legal document for you to ensure that your emotional support animal receives protection under the law. The letter is signed, stamped, and dated and is valid for one year, so if you wish to continue to register your pet as an emotional support animal, you’ll need to have another appointment to renew your documentation.

There are so many perks to using telemedicine in this way, but the key advantage for many people with the conditions that can benefit most from ESAs is that it allows them to see a non-judgmental medical professional in a way that is convenient for them. Sometimes, medical professionals who are not as educated in emotional support animals can be overly judgmental about people seeking this treatment. In using telemedicine, it is much easier to seek out someone who specializes in this treatment and who is used to seeing and treating people just like you.

In the new age of telemedicine, it’s never been easier to get your pet certified as an emotional support animal.

If you suffer from a condition that makes it difficult for you to leave the house, it’s also very helpful that you can use telemedicine from the comfort of your own home. The paradox is that often, in getting an emotional support animal, you will feel less anxious and more able to leave the house and live a happy and fulfilled life, but your symptoms can often make it very difficult to get the documentation you need to properly access this treatment. When you get a telemedical appointment, you’ll be able to speak to someone openly and honestly from your own home, comfortable in the knowledge that they won’t judge you and they’ll be happy to give you the advice and documentation that you need.

You may already be getting the benefits of an emotional support animal from your regular pet, but if you have the documentation, you’ll be able to get benefits while traveling or renting a home that would not be open to you otherwise. In using telemedicine to access these benefits, you’re empowering yourself to take control of your own life and health with the help of telemedical professionals who want to make sure that patients get the chance to access the medical care that they need without any fear of judgment.

You might be forgiven for thinking that telemedicine is a relatively new innovation. In fact, it’s been around for many years now, albeit in a fairly rudimentary form in the early days. With an ever-growing and increasing amount of technology at our fingertips, advances in telemedicine have been particularly great over the last decade or more. It’s important to remember that telemedicine is not making these advances solely because it can make these advances, in other words just to take advantage of modern technology – it’s making these advances because there is an increasing demand, largely due to the benefits of telemedicine that have been so far demonstrated.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, people living in remote parts of the States need better and quicker access to medical help and advice. Secondly, the ever-increasing cost of medicine is not only crippling some of our medical centers, but also making it difficult for some folk to afford treatment or health insurance. Finally, there’s that all-important commodity of which none of us seem to have enough… Time! As a patient, it’s time spent making appointments, waiting for appointments, waiting in a doctor’s office, waiting for results, waiting to speak to your specialist… You get the picture: it’s a waiting game! For the medical professionals it’s time spent visiting patients, waiting for input from other professionals, waiting for test results and scans to be sent, carrying out procedures and surgery, and so on.

Telemedicine is being adopted by more and more health care systems in more and more states. There are (aren’t there always?!) a few legalities to be sorted out, but in time it will become even more widespread and multi-faceted. Given our physician shortage, this can only be a good thing. So let’s look at the benefits of telemedicine and the ways it could save you time and money.

The first thing, obviously, is travel time. If you’re able to have a video appointment with your doctor via a smartphone or laptop from the comfort of your own home, there’s no travel time. Imagine that! In some of our rural areas, patients literally have to travel for hours to see a physician, and some patients who are less mobile might find traveling a struggle – so of course the reduced need for travel is one of the most important benefits of telemedicine.

With no travel time, there is no travel expense. So you’ll also save the cost of gas for your car or public transport charges.

It’s never been easier to access medical professionals from the comfort of your own home.

You might have to take unpaid time off work to see your doctor. Another of the many benefits of telemedicine is that many physicians offer video appointments outside of normal 9–5 working hours, so if you can take advantage of this, then there’s no loss of work time. In addition to this benefit, you’re also likely to be “seen” quicker via a video call, therefore treated quicker and back to normal more quickly, with the net result being less time off work.

If you’re waiting for a physical appointment, your illness or condition could worsen. So the quicker you’re seen, the less medication you might need or perhaps the less assistance you might need – either for yourself or in terms of child care.

A current trend in America is for more and more patients to bowl up at an ER with a minor complaint, because the wait to see their physician is just too long. Imagine if, instead of going to the ER with one of these said minor conditions, you were able to get a speedy video appointment. This would free up the ER for real emergencies, which would lead to a reduction in overall costs, eventually resulting (we hope) in lower charges to you, the patient.

Freeing up emergency departments and doctors’ waiting rooms is just one of the many benefits of telemedicine.

With telemedicine making the exchange of data and of opinions between medical experts much easier and quicker, again this will ultimately reduce costs and therefore charges. It could also save you, the patient, valuable time in the diagnosis and treatment of your condition. Imagine a scenario where you have to have various scans, X-rays, etc., all of which need to be looked at and discussed by more than one specialist. Telemedicine allows each of these specialists to receive a copy of all of your procedures electronically, and then to have a video consultation to discuss your condition and treatment. Time and money saved.

Of course, it’s fair to point out that not all illnesses or conditions are possible to deal with remotely. Telemedicine is excellent for psychiatric illnesses and for physical conditions relating to endocrinology, for example, but obviously a video appointment wouldn’t work where an actual physical examination is needed. Telepsychiatry is one area which is definitely on the increase and with an escalation in virtual doctor visits in general; telehealth companies are saying that we will all see benefits and monetary savings.

Telemedicine platforms – a software system – give physicians a secure and well-organized way of practicing medicine remotely. They can keep track of their patients’ health and care more easily; share records and data with other specialists; give out e-prescriptions anytime, anyplace; document all remote patient visits; and send out bills and receive payment electronically by both patients and insurance companies. All of this saves everyone – patients and specialists alike – time and money, and with ongoing developments and advances, the patient can only hope to experience more and more benefits of telemedicine.

Although telemedicine has been around for some time now, it’s only really in the last decade or so that the medical community and patients alike have started to embrace it. Understandable, given that it was very rudimentary in the early days. The potential was there though and obvious to most. With recent advances and developments in technology and with the wider availability of broadband services, telemedicine is finally beginning to show its true colors.

According to recent surveys and to current chat on the subject among the medical community, it’s fair to say that there are mixed views on telemedicine, for reasons that we will outline. Most revealing, though, is a recent national survey that found over 63% of health care providers use telemedicine in some form or other. The general belief is that telehealth can expand a physician’s patient base, is more cost-efficient, and makes it possible to engage better with a patient – which means that a positive outcome is more likely.

When asked for their views, doctors invariably recognize the importance of telemedicine in the running of their daily practice, but believe that it needs more development. They feel that it’s particularly of benefit to their elderly and immobile patients. They also want to have phone calls and video calls seen as part of their service and therefore as something they are reimbursed for.

There are many positive views on telemedicine among the medical community that are relevant to how telemedicine could benefit you. Physicians can see the advantage of virtual visits with patients who are unable to make a scheduled appointment in person. A video call can be instantaneous. Practices lose a lot of revenue through missed appointments; telehealth visits reduce the number of these lost appointments as well as giving patients greater flexibility on when they “see” the doctor.

Telemedicine is revolutionizing medicine – but what do those in the medical community think about it?

Telemedicine is also playing an important part in combating the rise of chronic and acute conditions. Patients with a recognized chronic condition need regular checks and care, and sometimes lifestyle coaching. Acute conditions are often recognizable via telehealth with diagnosis and treatment therefore available more quickly.

Surgeons are also supporting the use of telemedicine in surgical follow-ups. Post-surgery care is invariably crucial to the successful recovery of patients; without good care, readmission to hospital is more likely. Through telemedicine – in particular, via video link – health care providers can easily monitor their patients as they recover from the surgery.

Another area where the medical community is embracing telemedicine is in the field of mental health services. It’s widely believed that there is currently a crisis in American mental health. Telemedicine can expand access to mental health and emotional support services to those in remote areas or those who simply do not have adequate care close by. It’s also often easier for a person who may be suffering from depression or from low self-esteem to speak to a specialist via a video link rather than in person.

A further positive influence of telemedicine is seen to be in the remote monitoring of patients to make sure they are taking their medication or are following specific medical instructions. An example might be the adjusting of insulin based on glucose readings. Again, this not only helps the patient, but also means less time taken in follow-up by the caretaker and less hospital re-admissions.

According to the Pareto law of medical diagnosis, 80% of diagnoses come from the discussion of symptoms and 20% as a direct result of an examination. So telemedicine can be useful in the many situations where a physical examination is not required and also in situations where the patient might simply wish to ask his/her doctor some questions about a non-life-threatening condition or a health need. These services can often be available 24 hours a day, making it easy to see that savings can be made on time, travel, and work-loss hours.

Similarly, medics are quick to recognize the important role telemedicine plays in the running of small and/or remote hospitals. Such hospitals may not have the resources to keep a radiologist or a pathologist, for example, in-house 24/7. Or they may not have a particular specialist in house. Telemedicine allows images to be transmitted to the relevant person anywhere at any time, meaning data can be analyzed and specialists can view ultrasounds and offer an opinion.

Many medical practitioners and patients alike are embracing the technology that makes telemedicine possible.

Some of the negative views on telemedicine offered by the medical community include the fact that telemedicine regulations vary greatly from state to state and can be difficult to interpret. Some physicians simply don’t have the time or the wherewithal to look into the guidelines for their own particular state.

Another unfavorable view is to do with the technology involved. Some physicians feel that their patients may not be computer-literate enough to be able to embrace telemedicine. Others are concerned about the cost of purchasing and setting up the necessary equipment. Training may be required in their practice and possibly the hiring of additional IT staff. Also, with technology of course comes technical glitches, which could happen during a virtual consultation. Some physicians are wary of this.

However, the above potential problems notwithstanding, it’s been found that even if they are perhaps initially hesitant in the use of telemedicine applications such as video appointments, once physicians start using them, they are often very surprised by the versatility of video technology and how it enhances their services.

More and more members of the medical community are coming on board with telemedicine. Guidelines need to be streamlined, technology a little more secure, and the availability of broadband intensified in order for even more people to embrace it. There’s no doubt, though, that telemedicine is the future and that it could have a vital role to play in your own wellbeing.

Telemedicine had an unprecedented year in 2017 and is currently taking the country (and world) by storm. This surge in interest in the new health care trend has been unprecedented in recent times, and this looks set to continue into 2018 and beyond. Despite the current ascent of telemedicine, it is not in fact a new idea; telemedicine has been around for decades. But when it was first introduced, it was only applied in relation to telephone-aided health care, and was seen as an outlier practice, set up to help those people who had trouble getting to a doctor avail of the health care they required.

The lay of the land is quite different sixty-odd years later. Thanks to the rise of smartphones and the prevalence of digital technology everywhere we turn, telemedicine has been able to be incorporated in to the medicinal arena in ways that its inventors couldn’t conceive of, and is now becoming a major initiative in the ever-changing field of health care. Commodities like Netflix and WhatsApp have gotten us used to having things on demand – an instantaneous delivery of the things we want to engage with. Telemedicine operates no differently, and can, in one sense, be thought of as “medicine on demand.”

Doctors everywhere are using telemedicine for the benefit of both themselves and their patients.

This is of course not the only application of telemedicine, but it fits right in with the way the world operates in 2018, and constitutes a large part of why telemedicine is becoming so popular with patients (or potential patients). It gives people access to the health care they require when and where they need it; it also gives doctors more time in the day to attend to more patients, and recommend specialists from anywhere in the country, not just one that happens to be nearby their patient.

Going to a doctor’s office is hassle (and a little intimidating) for most people, but for some people, it’s downright impossible. The primary aim of telemedicine when it was established in the 1950s is still as applicable as ever today, despite the technological advancements. Patients who need to see a doctor but live in remote areas or are physically incapacitated can avail of health care via their smartphones or tablets, without needing to leave their house. They can also be referred to specialists for their specific condition and confer with these specialists without needing to leave their house. Instead of a telephone call, the patients can actually consult with their doctor to “face-to-face” via Skype or FaceTime, leading to better communication between doctor and patient, diagnosis, and treatment.

But telemedicine is not just about doctors and specialists having consultations with incapacitated patients; it is also a new channel for people to be prescribed and avail of medicine, without having to go and physically obtain a prescription. Take the new wave of medical marijuana legalization laws currently sweeping the U.S. MMJ is now legal in 29 states and counting in various forms, and patients can apply for their medicine over the internet, by seeking a certified medical marijuana identification card from reputed sites like MMJ Recs. By providing an online source for increasingly common medicine like medical marijuana, telemedicine is helping to take the heat of the health care system, allowing doctors to see more of the patients they need to consult in person.

Medical data can be transmitted easily via telemedicine, changing the way doctors, patients and specialists interact for the better.

Doctors are also better able to monitor their patients through telemedicine and allow patients to better monitor themselves. It is common practice for doctors to want to keep an eye on heart activity in older patients, yet they could previously only do this sporadically, when the patient came to see them. Through telemedicine, patients are able to send their doctor through any relevant information, or even upload data to the cloud in real time, allowing their medical team to get a broad perspective on their condition, and see if there’s immediate need for further action. Essentially, across many different conditions, the transfer of information is much quicker when it comes to telemedicine, which can only be a good thing when it comes to treating patients.

Ultimately, the practice of telemedicine is slowly revolutionizing the face of health care, and as it becomes more widespread and prevalent, it will surely be the go-to method of consulting your doctor for myriad reasons. On top of all the instantaneous benefits, it also saves the health system and patients money by cutting out administration costs for the former, and axing any travel expenditure for the latter. It also saves both parties time, which is an important factor when dealing with a constantly overworked health care system and diminished resources. When it comes to medical matters, time is the most precious commodity of all; the main benefit of telemedicine is that it saves time, and in the process, might just save more lives. Telemedicine is undoubtedly the future; but it is also the now.

You may be unfamiliar with the concept of telemedicine, but it is changing the lives of patients the world over. With the advent of new and emerging technology, we are all carrying our lives in our pockets via our smartphones. They cover everything from banking, to contacts, to diaries. They are everything in a small device – and they now cover health care too. While you would traditionally visit a doctor in a clinic or a hospital, it is now easier than ever to access health care via the internet from the comfort of your own home through the medium of telemedicine.

What is telemedicine? Simply put, it is the delivery of medical advice and diagnoses to a patient via the means of telecommunications. It may seem a bit unorthodox, but the truth is that telemedicine is revolutionizing health care for all kinds of patients. Women can access a prescription to a contraceptive pill without leaving the house. Parents can get advice on how to treat their sick kids, knowing that they’re doing the right thing, and medical marijuana patients can easily access advice and treatment without fear of judgment.

It can be difficult for people who need medical marijuana to be able to access treatment. While 29 states in the USA have legalized the use of medical marijuana, each state has its own rules for eligibility and there is still considerable stigma surrounding the use of medical marijuana to legitimately treat various conditions, including multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, and depression. It can be very difficult and intimidating for a patient to go into a doctor’s office and seek treatment with medical marijuana. Telemedicine can be a much easier and safer route for patients to get the treatment that they need.

MMJ patients have benefited in so many ways from the advent of telemedicine.

So how do you use telemedicine to access medical marijuana treatment? The good news is that it’s a really easy process. There are many medical professionals operating online who can offer you confidential medical advice and give you your medical marijuana card so that you can access the correct treatment. You simply log on to a registered and professional website like MMJ Recs, wait for a doctor to become available, and speak to them about your condition. If they think that you’re suitable for treatment, they will write a recommendation for you to get medical marijuana. The letter will be mailed to you, officially signed and stamped, and then you’ll be able to get the medication that you need.

Many patients who require access to medical marijuana have difficulty leaving the house due to a number of reasons. This could be agoraphobia and anxiety related to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or physical reasons relating to the severity of a condition such as Parkinson’s disease or ataxia. Patients like this may not always have access to a doctor who can provide home visits. In addition, home doctor’s visits are often more expensive than traditional clinic visits, so it can be problematic for people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Telemedicine doctor’s appointments are usually even cheaper than going to visit a doctor in person, so are very suitable for people who may not have a lot of money but who need to visit a doctor frequently.

Now that telemedicine has come into play, it’s a much less stressful experience to consult with a doctor and obtain a medical marijuana card.

Depending on your state laws, there may be restrictions on the kind of medical marijuana that you can take. The best thing about telemedicine is that you’re not being rushed out of an office by a hassled doctor with a waiting room full of patients. You may have to pay a bit more for extra time, but a doctor who is working via telemedicine will not feel as pressured to rush you out and will be able to dedicate a little more time to answering any questions that you might have. They can guide you in relation to dispensaries if you are not familiar with the best way to purchase medical marijuana, and they can also tell you what strain of medical marijuana and which form to take it in is the best for you.

As marijuana is still illegal at a federal level, you will not get a medical marijuana prescription, but rather a recommendation. This is what you can bring to a dispensary in order to get your medical marijuana. Telemedicine is making medical marijuana patients’ lives far easier and has empowered them to be able to seek their own treatment that is the most appropriate for their illness. Telemedicine is easy and convenient, both for patients and medical professionals. There’s nothing better than knowing you’re carrying the best medical advice possible in your pocket and that you’re able to seek help whenever you need it.

The recent revolution in telemedicine is making life much easier for patients. Receiving medical treatment has never been more simple and efficient than it is today.

Telemedicine, meaning health care that is provided from a distance using technology such as a smartphone, laptop, or any other mobile device, has become hugely popular over the past few years. Today, the vast majority of people have a highly powerful personal computer within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. Modern smartphones and tablets now contain computers that are far more advanced than the computers we used to get to the moon in the 1960s!

This means that medical consultations can now be done via modern technology. Using just a smartphone, a patient can consult with a doctor over any distance effectively and safely. The patient and doctor can use live video links and share images and health informatics data securely and instantly.

Telemedicine can work for everybody. It is particularly helpful for people who live in remote locations. It is also great for people who are stuck for time, because they lead very busy lives or because they need to consult with a doctor quickly, as it is much speedier and more time-efficient than meeting with a doctor in person. Another great thing about telemedicine is that it allows a patient to have a much wider choice of who they consult with. No longer is a patient only able to avail of health care professionals in their local area – using telemedicine, they can consult with doctors anywhere in the country.

One group of people that benefits particularly from the revolution in telemedicine are disabled parking permit users. Telemedicine has made it much easier than ever before to get a handicap parking permit.

There’s no longer any need to travel to obtain your handicap parking permit!

Handicap parking permits are issued by all 52 states and allow their users to park in strategically located parking spaces, providing easy access to buildings and facilities that would otherwise be difficult to access if the person had to park a further distance away. There is a long list of disabilities and medical conditions that qualify a person to get a handicap parking permit. Many people around the country qualify for one but don’t realize it, and so have yet to avail of this life-enhancing service.

If you have limited mobility, a disabled parking permit will really improve your quality of life, and thanks to telemedicine, getting a permit has never been easier!

Here is how you can use telemedicine to help you get a handicap parking permit in just five easy steps.

Step 1: Establish that You Have a Qualifying Medical Condition

The list of qualifying conditions varies by state, but there are a bunch of conditions that qualify a person in every state. It is also largely up to the discretion of the telemedicine doctor you consult with. Here is a list of conditions that every state recognizes as qualifying a person for a handicap parking permit:

• Heart disease
• Obesity
• Chronic inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus
• Being an amputee
• Arthritis
• Respiratory problems
• Any condition that requires the use of a portable oxygen tank
• Any condition that necessitates the use of a wheelchair, crutches, cane, walking frame, walking stick or Zimmer frame
• Acute sensitivity to sunlight
• Bad hearing or eyesight

If your condition resembles any of these, then you are very likely to qualify for a parking permit in your state.

Step 2: Make an Online Appointment with a Health Care Professional

Once you have established that you are a potential candidate for a handicap parking permit, the next step is to book a telemedicine consultation online. The consultation can be done over the phone from the comfort of your own home. So click here and book an appointment at a time that is most convenient for you. It’s very simple.

Telemedicine has made it so much easier to consult with a doctor and get your disabled parking permit online.

Step 3: Do the Consultation

When the time of your scheduled consultation arrives, be available and ready. A relaxed and friendly chat with a health care professional from the secure surrounding of your own home can be a surprisingly enjoyable experience. The doctor will discuss your condition with you and explain your options. At the end of the consultation they will let you know if you qualify for a handicap parking permit.

Step 4: Download the Department of Motor Vehicles Application Form and Complete It

After your telemedicine consultation, the next step is to go to the DMV website and download the application form for a handicap parking permit in your state. It is a simple form – just print it out and fill it in.

Step 5: Post the Doctor’s Letter and the Form Back to the DMV

Once you receive your telemedicine doctor’s letter of recommendation, put the letter and the DMV application form together in an envelope and post it back to the DMV. They will process it (it usually takes a week or two) and send you back your shiny new disabled parking permit. You can now use handicap parking spaces.

As you can see, this is an easy process. If you think you might qualify, it could be well worth looking into. A disabled parking permit makes life much easier!

It’s perhaps difficult to get our heads around this fact, but it’s true to say that telemedicine has been with us for nearly a hundred years now. We probably think of telemedicine in terms of video and Skype calls, or the emailing of scans and X-rays – things that could surely only have been available in the last decade or two! In fact, though, one of the earliest forms of telemedicine occurred in the 1940s, when radiology images were transported from one town to another via a telephone line. This was the start of it, but telemedicine has sure come a long way since those days!

The use of telemedicine today has spread rapidly and is now part of the fabric of hospital services, specialty departments, home health agencies, physician offices, and indeed patients’ workplaces and homes. Telemedicine encompasses everything from a simple telephone consultation or Skype call to digital scans and even the remote monitoring of intensive care units. According to the American Telemedicine Association, more than 20 million Americans will have access to a remote health care service by the end of 2017.

Let’s look at exactly why Americans are embracing telemedicine in droves and how telemedicine could benefit you.

Patients who live in remote locations in the U.S. are experiencing great benefits from the advent of telemedicine.

If you live in a rural part of the States, then simply traveling to see a physician or for a hospital appointment can not only be a huge challenge, but can also take up most of your day. Imagine how much time, energy, and money you would save if you were able to speak with your specialist remotely. It wouldn’t work in all cases, of course, but where you don’t actually need a physical examination it could be hugely beneficial.

Another group of people benefiting from the growing availability of telemedicine is the elderly. The number of elderly Americans is increasing year on year and, of course, as you get older, you are generally less mobile and need more care. Also, older citizens might find it more difficult to travel for every appointment, so to be able to speak with a health professional from the comfort of your own home would be a great benefit. Many senior care home facilities are now accessing telemedicine via videoconferencing. Patients can be viewed and observed by a physician in situ (a much more comfortable and amenable experience for them), a diagnosis can be made, and treatments or prescriptions prescribed. If all of this is done remotely it saves time and money as well as the problems associated with getting elderly patients from A to B. Add to those benefits a less harrowing undertaking for the patient and the fact that this type of care results in fewer hospital admissions, and you have an all-round winner when it comes to telemedicine and elderly care patients.

A further telling reason why the U.S. is embracing telemedicine is that there is currently a shortage of physicians in the States. This shortage is expected to worsen over the next few years. The increase of telemedicine can aid this problem simply because it saves time. Physicians can deal with more patients if they are seeing them remotely; appointments aren’t wasted through “no-shows”; consultation and diagnosis tends to be quicker remotely; scans and X-rays can be shared among experts without the need to actually meet in person and discuss the patient. The more consultations, treatments, and diagnoses of less serious complaints that can be done via telemedicine, the more time the professionals have to treat serious illnesses and conditions. We all benefit from that, right?

From patients right through to health care professionals themselves, telemedicine is providing a huge host of benefits.

Imagine, too, if a physician wanted to take on a new partner. He or she might need to carry out renovations or building works in order to add a new treatment room to accommodate this new partner. There’s an immediate expense, which would only in time be passed onto you, the patient. But if this physician could simply employ a new partner to work remotely with patients, they would only need a desk, a phone, and a laptop. Job done immediately and with little cost! Physicians from the same practice could work rotating schedules, thereby making someone available during out-of-work hours. Again, this allows the practice to treat more patients and gives the patients greater flexibility in accessing help and advice. Something that’s surely of interest to everyone – not least employers, as it means less appointments and consultations during working hours.

Health insurers have perhaps been dragging their heels a little in embracing telemedicine culture, but more and more private insurers are now starting to cover telehealth services. Many states are also coming on board by introducing laws and guidelines. The extent of insurers’ cover varies greatly at the moment and some employ geographical restrictions, so there’s a way to go yet, but we are heading in the right direction. The more health insurance companies that offer cover for telemedicine services, the more the services will be promoted and therefore used by patients. Most insurers can see the advantage for their rural members and some of the more far-sighted companies can see that telemedicine cover might attract businesses who want to offer a modern-day convenience as part of their employee package. Insurers are also hoping that telemedicine will mean less of their members ending up in the more expensive health care scenarios. This is all good news for the consumer. Less costs for our health insurer will mean lower premiums for us.

As you can see, there are many compelling reasons why the U.S. is embracing telemedicine and many ways that telemedicine can be of benefit to you, the consumer. As technology improves, these benefits will surely become even more apparent to us all.