Many areas of medicine are continuing to improve with the advent of telemedicine practices. A growing number of people are able to consult with specialists remotely, have their medical conditions (both chronic and acute) diagnosed and treated, and have better overall health care because of these advances. As technology affects and transforms the health care industry, it’s likely we’ll continue to see additional telemedicine services being offered for a variety of medical issues. In recent years, teletherapy has been used to help treat individuals who need speech therapy. Here’s a look at how these online options can be just as useful as in-person visits.

Speech therapy is the evaluation and treatment of people who are having issues with speech, language, cognitive function, or problems that affect their learning, memory, or problem-solving skills. There are also swallowing disorders that can be treated with speech therapy. Adults can develop speech issues after a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or concussion, or because of neurological diseases like Parkinson’s disease, ALS, or multiple sclerosis. Although adults can be in need of treatment, it’s more likely that people hear about speech therapy for children.

There are several speech disorders children experience that can benefit from speech therapy, including articulation disorders (difficulties producing sounds or saying words incorrectly), fluency disorders (stuttering, partial-word repetitions, or prolonged sounds), and resonance or voice disorders (problems with pitch, volume, or quality of voice that can cause pain or discomfort for the child). There are also specific language disorders, such as receptive disorders (difficulty understanding or processing language), expressive disorders (difficulty putting words together or limited vocabulary), and cognitive-communication disorders (difficulty with communication skills like memory, perception, and regulation) that can occur in childhood. Children can also need speech therapy because of hearing impairments, developmental delays, weak oral muscles, birth defects, autism, and respiratory problems.

With online speech therapy options now more widely available, children and families all over the U.S. are seeing the benefits.

A speech therapist, or speech-language pathologist (SLP), is educated in the study of human communication, its development, and its disorders. They typically hold a master’s degree and state certification or license, along with a certificate of clinical competency from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). They use different strategies to help eliminate or alleviate a person’s symptoms. With children, these methods can include language intervention activities, which have the therapist interact with the child by playing and talking and using repetition exercises to build language skills. There is also articulation therapy, where the therapist models correct sounds for the child during specific play activities. Oral-motor/feeding and swallowing therapy can also be beneficial for some patients. Therapists can build on each step of progress the child makes and create new goals as they continue on with the speech therapy sessions.

The use of online speech therapy has continued to grow for a number of reasons. First, it can be challenging for some families to find qualified speech therapists near them – especially if they live in a rural area. Access to high-quality therapy can be essential for patients who otherwise wouldn’t be able to access help. Second, using these teletherapy methods means that it can sometimes be more affordable for the patient. Some school districts in the U.S. offer speech therapy to their students, but many districts don’t have the resources to provide complete, comprehensive care. However, they might have more funds to provide online speech therapy, since this can be a cheaper option. Additionally, if parents can’t afford in-person therapy sessions, they might find that online therapy can be more affordable.

There are other benefits to using telemedicine measures for speech therapy. Using online video conferences can mean that families have much more convenient options for treatment. Sessions can be scheduled when it’s most convenient for the parents and child. For busy working parents, families who use online therapy services also don’t have to worry about finding transportation for their children for in-person visits. Therefore, scheduling and completing sessions can be a less stressful experience for the whole family.

There are numerous benefits to using telemedicine for speech therapy, especially for children.

There also can be something of a stigma attached to therapy. For some kids, going to a speech therapist for help with a stutter or speech impediment can make them feel different to or singled out from other kids in their class. They can miss important classwork and time spent in the classroom, which can make them feel separate from their friends or cause them to fall behind in their schoolwork. Online speech therapy can mean that the child can get the same help outside of school hours without setting themselves apart from their classmates or taking them away from valuable class time. This can end up boosting their confidence and overall self-esteem.

Online speech therapy can also be more therapeutically beneficial. Oftentimes, students who meet with a school therapist do so infrequently. Much of the progress gained during a session can be lost from week to week (or during longer periods of time). Teletherapy video conferences mean a student can have more consistent treatment and possibly more frequent sessions to enhance the treatment and boost odds of improvement. Telemedicine can actually be a more advantageous option than traditional in-person methods if more persistent treatment is available to the patient.

Not only can online speech therapy be just as effective as in-person visits, it can also actually have even further benefits. Treatment can be more affordable, more convenient, and more progressive, resulting in children (and adults) facing a greater chance of seeing their symptoms improve or disappear altogether. With these noticeable advantages, it’s no wonder telemedicine measures are continuing to grow across the country.

For millennia, patients have had to accept whatever treatment a medical professional happened to foist upon them. Whether the medical professional happened to be a witch doctor in the Amazon or a scalpel-wielding Victorian physician eager to perform a frontal lobotomy, patients had little choice but to follow the doctor’s orders. Throughout history, there was very much an ‘us and them’ divide between doctors and patients. Doctors knew it all, patients knew nothing. This was very empowering for doctors, but disempowering for patients.

Telemedicine has leveled the playing field. Thanks to telemedicine, patients now have much more choice and involvement in their treatment. Telemedicine is empowering patients by giving them massively increased choice, and also opening up a world of potential learning and education that was previously closed off to them. Patients can now take charge of their own treatment and make choices for themselves with the help of doctors, medical professionals, and telemedicine apps.

Obviously, most patients are not fully qualified to make decisions about their medical treatment completely independently, but the fact that telemedicine has empowered patients by giving them far more choice, and far better sources of information than ever before, is surely a good thing.

Here are 6 ways in which telemedicine is empowering patients.

Telemedicine Gives Patients More Control Over Their Money

Telemedicine has many money-saving benefits. It allows patients to choose from a far larger pool of potential health care providers, enabling them to find the most cost-effective treatment. It also does away with the need to take a lot of time off work to travel to lengthy in-person consultations. The money that patients save by using telemedicine is hugely empowering. Having more money to pay off debt, increase savings, or buy goods and services that they desire or need is very empowering for patients.

Saving money (and time) is one of the biggest benefits of telemedicine.

Telemedicine Allows Patients More Choice of Who They Consult With

In days gone by, patients had to consult with whatever medical professional happened to be based nearest to their location. This often meant that patients had to make do with subpar doctors or facilities. It also meant that patients sometimes had to be treated by doctors they did not warm to. This lack of choice of who patients could deal with was very disempowering. Telemedicine has empowered patients by giving them a much better choice of which medical professionals they can be treated by.

Telemedicine Makes it Possible For Patients to Live in Remote Locations

Before telemedicine, many patients had no choice but to live in locations that were near to medical facilities, but otherwise unappealing. Many people had to live in big, overcrowded cities just to be near hospitals and medical facilities. Telemedicine has freed patients up big-time in this regard. Patients can now choose to live in much more remote locations far away from the nearest hospital or surgery. Having the ability to live in a peaceful wilderness or small, friendly village, while using telemedicine to meet their medical needs, is very empowering for patients.

Telemedicine Gives Patients More Choice Between Different Treatments

There are many ways to skin a cat. Exciting new medical treatments are being developed all the time that can meet the needs of patients much better than older, traditional treatments. Before the age of telemedicine, exciting new treatments were often unavailable to patients whose doctor was not up-to-date with the newest research. Telemedicine has empowered patients by enabling them to choose doctors in distant locations that offer groundbreaking new treatment options.

Want to travel the world, but still access health care? Enter telemedicine!

Telemedicine Gives Patients the Freedom to Travel the World

The ability to up sticks and travel the world is certainly very empowering. Telemedicine enables patients to do just that by giving them the option to consult with their physician or health care provider remotely, from anywhere in the world. Thanks to telemedicine, even people with chronic health conditions can explore the world safe in the knowledge that, should they need to, they can contact their doctor from any location. This is hugely empowering.

Telemedicine Gives Patients Their Time Back

Time is the most valuable resource there is. Traditional medicine often robs people of their precious time by requiring them to make long journeys to hospitals or surgeries and to wait for interminable hours in waiting rooms and ERs. Telemedicine empowers people by giving them far more control over their time. It allows patients to choose much less time-consuming methods of treatment, and therefore save plenty of hours with which they can do as they please.

Traditional medicine has a lot of side effects that are harmful to the environment. Telemedicine, on the other hand, makes the world a smaller and more efficient place, and this has a very positive effect on the environment.

Traditional medicine demands a lot of energy, mainly in the form of electricity. Traditional medicine requires large buildings and substantial physical infrastructure; it often necessitates that long journeys be made by road, rail, air, or sea; and it generates huge amounts of waste. The need to receive traditional medical treatment makes it essential for many people to live in large urban centers that cause great pollution to the environment.

Telemedicine has the potential to solve all of these harmful side effects of traditional medicine (at least to some extent). It makes travel less necessary; it reduces energy consumption; it decreases the need for large bricks-and-mortar facilities; it saves people time and money that can be dedicated to environmental projects. In all of these ways, telemedicine is much better for the environment than traditional medicine.

Here are 6 ways telemedicine can improve the environment.

Telemedicine Reduces the Need For Bricks-and-Mortar Medical Facilities

Physical infrastructure – such as hospitals, surgeries, roads, shops, cafes, and restaurants – is required to make traditional medicine work. All of this physical infrastructure takes up space, uses a vast amount of energy, and produces a ton of waste. Hospitals are often built on green-belt land. These giant structures often devour parkland and destroy ecosystems. Telemedicine makes a lot of this physical infrastructure unnecessary. Using telemedicine, people can consult with a doctor or any other type of medical professional remotely from the comfort of their own home. This makes physical infrastructure less necessary and therefore improves the environment.

The less need for physical infrastructure, the more room for green spaces full of life!

Telemedicine Means Hospitals and Surgeries Can Be Smaller

Not only is infrastructure less necessary, but the infrastructure that already exists is now being scaled back thanks to telemedicine. Buildings that were once needed for traditional medicine are being freed up and can now be used for housing and other purposes. This reduces the need to build new houses on green-belt land. This scaling back of infrastructure and recycling of buildings is very good for the environment.

Telemedicine Reduces the Need For Travel

Being able to consult with a medical professional anywhere in the country (or even the world) from the comfort of your own home makes traveling much less essential. Telemedicine hugely reduces the need to journey by road, rail, or plane to visit a doctor in person. Using traditional medicine, patients often have to make a long car journey to see their local physician. A lot of patients need to travel by air to see a specialist when their condition requires it. Travel by road and plane is very bad for the environment. Telemedicine improves the environment by reducing the amount that patients need to travel to receive medical treatment.

Telemedicine Enables People To Choose More Eco-Friendly Treatments

Telemedicine gives patients far more choice. Thanks to this increased choice patients can now select from a wider range of possible medical treatments. Some treatments are more eco-friendly than others. For example, many people are choosing to use medical marijuana, grown organically on sustainable facilities, instead of synthetic drugs concocted in huge chemical-spewing pharmaceutical plants. Telemedicine allows people to improve the environment by choosing eco-friendly treatments.

Accessing eco-friendly treatments through telemedicine, like medical marijuana, has a positive impact on the environment.

Telemedicine Allows People to Live in Eco-Friendly Locations

The fact that people can get their medical treatment needs met remotely using telemedicine means that they can now, more than ever before, choose to live in remote locations. Cities are often clogged and dirty places that do great damage to the environment. Spewing sewage, traffic fumes, and household waste, modern cities put great pressure on the planet’s ecosystem. The more these cities can be decongested, the better. Living in less crowded, more eco-friendly locations can have a very positive impact on the environment. It is easier to live sustainably in smaller rural locations. Telemedicine makes it possible to live outside of cities by making it easy to consult with medical professionals from any location, no matter how remote.

Telemedicine Saves Time and Money… Which Can Be Dedicated to Environmental Causes

Telemedicine saves patients a ton of time and money. These invaluable resources can be used to improve the environment in numerous ways. Money can be invested in green projects like solar and wind power, and time can be invested in community clean-ups, building green homes and buildings, joining environmentalist movements, and volunteering on green projects. When telemedicine saves people time and money that they then dedicate to green projects, telemedicine is having a very positive impact on the environment.

Stress has reached epidemic proportions in the world today. Even while standards of living are increasing across the board in most parts of the world, people are suffering from chronic stress seemingly more than ever. Social media addiction, ultra-demanding corporate work schedules, competition anxiety, rising personal debt – these are all stress-inducers that are common in the modern world. People are time-starved, money is tight, and “keeping up with the Joneses” feels like a stressful necessity for millions.

In this stressful modern world, any and all developments that can reduce stress are welcome. Telemedicine is one of these stress-reducing developments. Telemedicine saves time, saves money, increases patients’ choice, and makes it possible for people to live in calmer, less busy locations where life is slower and less stressful. Telemedicine has reduced stress levels for millions of people all over the world.

Here are 8 ways telemedicine can decrease stress.

Telemedicine Is Less Costly

Personal debt is a huge cause of stress in the modern world. Mounting personal debt eats away at a person’s peace of mind. Telemedicine saves people money by allowing them to choose the most cost-effective treatment options from a much larger pool of potential health care providers. It also makes it possible to not travel long distances to get medical treatment. The money that people save by using telemedicine instead of traditional medicine can be put towards paying off debt and increasing personal savings. These money-saving benefits can greatly decrease stress.

Money is one of the biggest causes of stress, so any money saved on medical appointments is a huge help.

Telemedicine Provides More Choice

Dealing with a medical professional who is not particularly appropriate to a patient’s needs can be stressful. When a patient uses traditional medicine, they have much less choice and so often have to deal with a health care professional that they don’t feel comfortable with or trust. With limited choice, people also often have to deal with health care professionals who are charging excessive prices. The increased choice that telemedicine provides means a patient can find the perfect medical professional to meet their specific needs. This increased choice can be a big stress-reliever for patients.

Telemedicine Saves a Lot of Time

In the modern world, time is often of the essence. People have very tight schedules and deviating from these can often lead to a stressful backlog of “to do”s. Telemedicine saves a lot of time because people can consult with doctors remotely in a tiny fraction of the time it would take them to visit a surgery for an in-person consultation. These time-saving benefits can save people a lot of stress.

Telemedicine Makes It Easier To Live In Remote, Peaceful Locations

Living in a big, bustling, intensely busy city can be very stressful. Being able to live in a smaller, more relaxed town or city, or even in a peaceful rural location, can hugely decrease a person’s stress levels. Telemedicine frees people from the necessity of living in a big urban area by allowing them to get their medical needs met remotely. Many people who use traditional medicine have no choice but to live near a major hospital. Using telemedicine allows people to live in much less stressful, “off-the-grid” locations.

Living in a less stressful location is much easier when you know you have access to telemedicine.

Telemedicine Reduces the Need For Stressful Surgery Visits

Queuing up in busy surgery waiting rooms or hospital ERs can be very stressful. Not only are these places often packed, stuffy, and uncomfortable, but they also tend to be hotbeds of germs and viruses. Telemedicine allows people to avoid waiting rooms and ERs for many medical conditions. In this way, it saves people a lot of stress.

Telemedicine Makes Life Less Stressful For Patients With Mobility Issues

For patients with mobility issues who require the use of disabled parking permits, telemedicine is a huge stress reliever. Getting to a surgery or hospital can be a difficult ordeal for people who use handicap parking. Telemedicine allows people with mobility issues to consult with health care professionals remotely. This saves people with mobility issues a lot of stress.

Telemedicine Means Less Time Off Work

Traditional medical treatment often requires patients to take a lot of time off work. This can be very stressful because it often means fewer wages. It also can strain relations between a patient and their boss. The fact that telemedicine reduces the amount of time that a patient will need to take off work is often a big stress reliever.

Telemedicine Provides Stress-Relieving Education to Patients

Stress and fear often stem from ignorance and a lack of understanding about the world and the nature of one’s problems. Knowledge is the antidote to this ignorance and therefore a great reducer of stress. Telemedicine provides plenty of information for patients, giving them the option to use telemedicine apps to educate themselves about their medical condition and feel more reassured and less stressed.

It’s estimated that one in four Americans suffers from chronic poor digestive health. Symptoms include constipation, diarrhea, bloating, acid reflux, and abdominal pain. The majority of sufferers are women. Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a recognized condition that impacts many people and is particularly hard to diagnose conclusively and then to treat. It’s believed that the number of documented people who have IBS is far less than the number of actual sufferers, due to some people self-medicating and others not being formally diagnosed. Many patients are not happy with their current health care provider – either because they haven’t received a definitive diagnosis or, if they have, they didn’t find the post-diagnosis care helpful or they found it too expensive. Whatever the reasons, it seems a good time for telemedicine to enter the IBS arena and increase its impact on patients.

In fact, telemedicine is already being used in the diagnosis and treatment of IBS and other digestive complaints. Recent and ongoing research has compared the effectiveness of the traditional medical clinical team approach versus a technology-based approach. It’s important to find a way that works with every patient so that they receive better treatment and an improved quality of life. That treatment won’t be the same for everyone, as we all have different needs, different problems, and different responses. Telemedicine will undoubtedly be the answer for many, though, and is certainly the way of the future as technology continues to expand and develop.

There are so many benefits to consulting with your physician via telemedicine.

Imagine being able to have a Skype or phone conversation with your physician, rather than having to make an appointment, wait for that appointment, travel to that appointment, and take time off work or away from your kids for that appointment. Life would be a little easier, right? Not only easier, but you would save time and money. You can easily describe your symptoms to the doctor – he or she will know the right questions to ask. A digestive issue, at least in the early stages, is the sort of medical problem that doesn’t generally need a physical examination. Your symptoms, diet, and habits are of more significance. Once you’ve been assessed, your physician can email a prescription over to your nearest drugstore and you’ll hopefully be on your way to some relief.

Given the unpredictable nature of digestive complaints, you might also be much more relieved to conduct an appointment with your physician in the comfort and safety of your own house, rather than having to face a journey by car or public transport and then a wait to see the doctor.

In addition to diagnosing and providing treatment for digestive issues, telemedicine has also been successfully used in monitoring patients with gastrointestinal problems. Several Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) centers have set up telemedicine systems designed to increase and improve the management of gastroenterology diseases and symptoms. Over time, the use of telemedicine in these cases has been shown to improve patients’ quality of life, reduce their disease activity, increase their compliance with short-term treatments, and shorten the time of any recovery relapses. Patients on these programs have generally responded well to the use of telemedicine and have accepted it as a successful way of monitoring their condition.

Telemedicine could help improve the lives of many Americans suffering from IBS and other digestive issues.

Another benefit of treating and monitoring IBS and other digestive issues via telemedicine is apparent to the many Americans who live in a remote part of our vast country. Just a journey to see a physician for an appointment can take the best part of a day. That’s time traveling when you’re probably in pain or discomfort; money spent on the travel; and time off work or away from the family. Aside from that, if you need specialist care, there may not even be any available close to you. So if you can access that care and then the after-care you need via telemedicine, it’s a win/win situation.

Part of the after-care telemedicine can provide includes patients having access to registered dietitians and health coaches who have specific training and expertise in dealing with gastrointestinal symptoms and recognized conditions such as IBS, IBD, and food allergies. It brings great comfort to patients knowing that they have the one-to-one support of an expert who is available at the touch of a keyboard. Patients are also encouraged to keep a record of what they eat, what they do, their symptoms, general health, general wellbeing, and so on. They can record this in whichever way works best for them – video, audio, written diary, etc. All this information can then be shared with their support person through the wonders of telemedicine.

There is no doubt that telemedicine is already having a positive impact on the diagnosis, treatment and management of digestive complaints. It’s highly likely that its use will be increased in the future, particularly for remote patients with restricted access to IBD centers; to improve and support patient self-management; and even as an instrument to increase health education and maintenance.

Being a new parent is very exciting, but it can also be stressful and hard work. Time and money become extra-valuable and scarce resources when there is a new baby to take care of. Telemedicine holds a vast amount of potential for new parents. The time-saving, money-saving and increased choice that telemedicine provides can come in extremely handy for people who are taking care of a new baby.

Here are seven benefits of telemedicine for new parents.

Telemedicine Allows Babies to Avoid Doctor’s Surgeries and Hospitals

Babies and toddlers are particularly vulnerable to picking up germs and viruses. Doctor’s surgery waiting rooms and hospital ERs are often hotbeds of germs and viruses. This can be especially problematic for babies, whose immune systems are still a little weaker and less robust. Keeping babies in relatively germ- and virus-free environments will make sure that they get sick as infrequently as possible. By using telemedicine, new parents can keep their babies out of doctor’s surgeries and ERs and away from the viruses and germs that linger there. This is a big benefit of telemedicine for new parents.

Keeping your new baby healthy and safe is your first priority as a new parent, and telemedicine can help you do that.

Telemedicine Provides Education For New Parents

Being a new parent throws up lots of new and unexpected challenges. It is crucial for a new parent to acquire the knowledge necessary to protect and nurture their child optimally during the baby’s formative early years. Conveniently, many telemedicine apps are full of interesting and important information for new parents. Apps such as Text4Baby provide pregnant women and new parents with a wealth of invaluable knowledge and information about being pregnant and becoming a new parent. Telemedicine apps have opened a whole world of learning and knowledge to new parents. This increased knowledge can hugely improve the lives of new parents and their children.

Telemedicine Saves New Parents Time

For new parents, time can be an extremely scarce resource. Things that were taken for granted in the past, such as a full night’s sleep and the chance to sit down and watch a TV show, become vanishingly rare treats! When taking care of a new baby, it can seem like every minute of the day is taken up by baby-related activities. This is often very exhausting for new parents, and anything that can save time is hugely helpful. Telemedicine saves massive amounts of time by doing away with the need to make time-consuming trips to the doctor’s surgery, hospital, or pharmacy. The time-saving that telemedicine provides is one of its greatest benefits for new parents.

Telemedicine Saves New Parents Money

Financial commitments are often huge for new parents. For many people, these financial commitments can put a major strain on their bank balance. Intelligent budgeting is very important for most new parents. Telemedicine provides big opportunities for new parents to save money by allowing them to choose the most economical and best-value medical professionals. Telemedicine also saves on gas and transport costs, because many consultations can be done online.

Most new parents are strapped for both cash and time, so the money-saving and time-saving benefits of telemedicine are extremely helpful.

Telemedicine Provides New Parents With More Choice

New parents are eager to get their babies and toddlers the best possible medical care that they can find. Whereas for most of human history, parents were very limited in which medical professionals they could get to treat their children, today they can choose from a much wider pool of doctors and specialists thanks to telemedicine. Telemedicine makes geography much less of a relevant factor, because new parents can consult with medical professionals who are based far from where they live. This increased choice offers huge benefits to new parents.

Telemedicine Improves New Parents’ Ability to Live in Remote Locations

Many new parents would prefer to bring their children up in remote and idyllic rural locations, far away from the negative influences and dangers of the big city. Growing up in the wilderness and playing freely in nature can be a beautiful, life-enhancing experience for children. Telemedicine makes it possible for new parents to bring up their children in remote locations because it is much easier to provide necessary medical treatment remotely, if and when it is required, using telemedicine apps and smart mobile technology.

Telemedicine Ensures The Best Medical Professionals Rise to the Top

The increased choice that telemedicine provides to new parents tends to make the market more competitive. This means that medical professionals who treat children are operating in a more demanding market. In this more competitive market, the cream tends to rise to the top. This is great news for new parents, because it means they can get their children treated by the best medical professionals in the business. Telemedicine increases competition amongst doctors and ensures that the most talented are easy to identify, which is extremely beneficial for new parents.

With levels of private debt in the United States sitting at worryingly high levels, people need to save money now more than ever. Americans need to budget, and many need to tighten their belts. Many economic forecasters predict that with increased longevity and low savings rates, there may be a pension crisis looming. Millions of people may be heading towards an old age in which their pension pots will not support a comfortable lifestyle. A lot of Americans could end up having to do paid work far beyond traditional retirement age, and perhaps even until they die. In this climate, money-saving has to be a priority. Medical bills are a particularly huge drain on the finances of millions of Americans – but fortunately, the benefits of telemedicine have arrived on the scene, and just in the nick of time!

Telemedicine is often a much cheaper treatment option than traditional medicine. Using telemedicine, a patient can save big bucks by choosing the best value medical treatment from a much larger pool of options. Telemedicine can also save people money on transport and travel, as well as allowing them to not take unnecessary time off work. Telemedicine has come to the rescue of many financially hard-up Americans who need all the money-saving help they can get.

Here are five money-saving benefits of telemedicine.

Telemedicine Provides More Choice

The more options a consumer has, the better price they are almost certain to get for a service. Telemedicine provides patients with much more choice than ever before. Patients can now choose medical professionals in different localities, cities, and even countries. One of the biggest benefits of telemedicine is that it allows patients to shop around and find the best possible value. The fact that customers can consult with doctors anywhere in the world is forcing medical professionals, in general, to be more competitive with their pricing. Telemedicine gives patients much more choice, and this increased choice can provide massive money-saving benefits.

When you have to make every penny count, having the option to use telemedicine services can be a real life-saver.

Telemedicine Decreases Travel Expenses

Traveling to and from medical consultations can cost a lot of money. People often need to consult with specialist doctors that are located far away – in different towns, cities, or even states. Traveling to and from an in-person medical consultation costs money, either in gas and vehicle maintenance or in public transport costs. Often a person will need to fly for a number of hours to get to the location where a specialist is located. That’s where another of the benefits of telemedicine comes in: it allows patients to consult with medical professionals in any location remotely using telecommunications technology. Being able to consult with a doctor from the comfort of your own home is much more economical and saves a lot of money in travel expenses.

Telemedicine Means Less Time Off Work

Visiting a medical professional in-person is a time-consuming undertaking. When travel times and queuing at the surgery are taken into account, a visit to a medical professional can take many hours, and sometimes even a whole day. When an in-person consultation takes this long it often means that the patient needs to take time off work, even if their medical condition does not actually necessitate any time off. This time off work often means a loss of earnings. One of the greatest benefits of telemedicine is that it allows people to save a lot of time by consulting with a medical professional remotely. This means it also saves people money by making it less necessary for them to take forced time off work.

There are so many benefits of telemedicine services, not least the greatly reduced expenses that can help you save money on your health care.

Telemedicine Breaks Up Expensive Local Monopolies

Telemedicine opens up the market. In times gone by, many localities were served by only one or a small few medical practitioners. This meant that the more unscrupulous doctors could charge higher fees because their patients had no choice but to pay them. Patients in small towns were often at the mercy of a monopoly, duopoly, or cabal. Telemedicine has made this type of unfortunate situation all but impossible. Telemedicine gives patients such a wide range of choice that they can easily take their business elsewhere if their local doctor is charging too much. This means that, in practice, no local doctor can afford to charge too much. By breaking up local monopolies, telemedicine has saved a lot of people a lot of money.

Telemedicine Is Getting Cheaper All the Time

Not only does telemedicine allow for all of the aforementioned money-saving opportunities, but it also is getting cheaper and cheaper in and of itself. Modern technological devices are getting cheaper as the technology becomes more advanced and easier to mass-produce. Smartphones and tablets are cheaper now than ever before. There are myriad high-quality telemedicine apps vying for the public’s attention, and this fierce competition drives prices lower and lower. The technology space in general, and the telemedicine space in particular, are highly competitive. Some of the best and brightest minds on Earth are working hard to develop the most cost-effective and best value technologies and apps. This is wonderful news for the consumer. Telemedicine is getting cheaper all the time, and this rapid progress brings excellent money-saving benefits to patients.

Telemedicine has been taking the medical world by storm in recent years, and with good reason; it completely revolutionizes the way we practice medicine in the United States of America. Taking its cues from a 1960s initiative that saw doctors linking up with remote patients via telecommunications (which essentially meant ‘phones’ back in the day), telemedicine is a way of providing on-demand health care to patients not just in remote places, but everywhere and anywhere that could benefit from instantaneous communications with doctors and healthcare professionals. As it stands in 2018, telemedicine is almost entirely digitized, and acts as a mediator between patients and doctors. But is it the same in every state in the U.S., and if not, how exactly does the most populous state in the country, the Golden State, deal with it? What is the state of telemedicine in California today?

The first thing to remember when discussing telemedicine anywhere is that it is viewed as a tool in medical practice, not a distinct or separate form of medicine in and of itself. This is very much the case with telemedicine in California, where the utilization and implementation of telemedicine goes back to 1992. That year, the University of California-Davis progressed a telemedicine program based around monitoring fetuses, especially designed for rural communities, which saw a link between the UC Davis Medical Center and a Colusa community hospital. Based on the success of that initiative, Sacramento-based Kaiser Permanente launched a home telemedicine program, while Blue Cross of California and the prison system followed their lead by introducing their own specific telemedicine programs.

Telemedicine is viewed as a tool in medical practice, not a distinct or separate form of medicine in and of itself.

In response to this growing demand, the California government decided that new legislature was needed, and a few years later, it passed the Telemedicine Development Act of 1996. This Act set much of the groundwork for the way telemedicine is practiced in the state today, and although it is a relatively new phenomenon in the field of medicine, this important piece of legislature was crucial in getting it up and running in a safe and legal manner. It imposes a few baseline requirements, such as health care plans not necessarily requiring face-to-face contact between patient and doctor (telemedicine in a nutshell), and that every patient on the receiving end of telemedicinal care must sign a written consent form.

A few years later, as digital technology continued to increase and improve, the state of California doubled down on its telemedicine bills and created a new one: The Telehealth Advancement Act of 2011. This Act clarified several definitions in relation to telemedicine in the state, and also expanded the initiative to include the term ‘telehealth’, which provided an umbrella term for telemedicine in general. Most importantly of all, it mandated private payer remuneration for telehealth services, which was a major boost for both patients and doctors alike. It also decreed that meetings between patients and doctors didn’t necessarily have to take place in licensed health care facilities. With this, telemedicine in California became more widely available, and set the framework for expedited growth in the years to come. In a few states, a person-to-person physical exam is required before a doctor and a patient can begin treatment via telemedicine; this is not the case in California, where relationships may be established solely through telemedicine and remain legitimate.

A number of different practitioners can provide telemedicinal care in the state of California – they just have to be licensed under Division 2 of the state’s Healing Arts statute. This remit includes doctors, nurses, chiropractors, midwives, dieticians, nutritionists, dentists, and more. The type of telemedicine available in the state is wide and varied, and can be applied to almost every form of health care available. Everything from clinical consultations to medical marijuana from sites like MMJ Recs constitutes telehealth, bringing California way ahead of the curve when it comes to the initiative. California is also a huge state; this makes it a perfect area to benefit from telemedicine’s other major advantage – the widening availability of specialists.

A number of different practitioners can provide care via telemedicine in California.

Previously, especially in rural areas, patients were limited to seeing the specialist who was nearest to them. As many conditions require a specialist, whether they appear serious or not, this was severely limiting for some patients, who might not have had the opportunity to shop around for a specialist that suited them, by necessity of their location. In 2018, there is a huge range of specialists available via telemedicine, and they’re not limited the nearest one available. On top of that, patients can engage with specialists when and where they want to, as opposed to being put on a long list for a physical visit that could be months or even years away.

All in all, the future for telemedicine in California looks bright. Hopefully some other states will start taking some cues from the Golden State, and incorporate its embracing and acceptance of telemedicine into their own programs.

Telemedicine is one of the great inventions of recent decades. This new form of medicine is improving the lives of millions of people in numerous ways. One of the major ways in which telemedicine makes the lives of patients better is that it hugely improves their choices when it comes to health care.

Here are six ways telemedicine improves a patient’s range of choice.

Geographic Location

Geography and distance matter less than ever before thanks to the advent of telemedicine. It is now easy for patients to choose to consult with physicians in far-off locations using telemedicine apps. Telemedicine allows patients to have consultations with medical professionals in distant parts of the country or even the world. The fact that geography and distance are now so much less of an impediment means that patients have a tremendously wider range of choice of which medical practitioners they consult with. Telemedicine has made the world a much smaller place.

Money Saving

Telemedicine affords patients far more scope for money-saving. When using conventional medicine, patients are likely to need to pay more because they only have access to a relatively small number of medical professionals. Telemedicine opens the market up and allows patients to choose from a far wider selection of medical professionals. A market operates best when there are no barriers to entry and competition is fierce. When providers of medical treatment are operating in a highly competitive market, they are forced to provide the best service possible for the most economical price. The healthy competition that telemedicine fosters gives patients a far wider choice and makes money-saving easier than ever.

Saving money on health care is made easier through the advent of telemedicine.

Rare Treatments

Using traditional medicine is inherently limiting in terms of the types of treatment it leaves open to a patient. When a person uses telemedicine, they have a far wider range of choices of what types of treatment they would like to avail of. This wider list of possible options includes rare, novel, and experimental treatments. Rare treatments are, by their very nature, only available from a few sources. Many groundbreaking types of medical treatment are only offered by a small handful of specialist doctors. Often a rare and experimental treatment is the best possible option for a patient. Telemedicine allows people to avail of rare and experimental treatments much more easily.

Time Saving

Before the advent of telemedicine, receiving medical treatment was often a very time-consuming undertaking. People had no choice but to travel long distances, wait in waiting rooms, attend multiple in-person consultations, visit pharmacies again and again, and generally devote tons of precious time to the business of receiving medical treatment. Telemedicine has changed all this. Thanks to telemedicine, patients now have the ability to choose treatment methods that are far less time-consuming, such as remote consultations. Telemedicine makes long journeys to hospitals and surgeries far less necessary in many cases; it also makes it easy to send test results over the internet. Patients have more time-saving options than ever before now thanks to telemedicine.

Telemedicine saves time for both patients and medical professionals alike.

Avoidance of ERs and Surgeries

Prior to telemedicine exploding onto the scene, patients were forced to spend long hours queuing up in emergency rooms and doctor’s surgeries, often for quite minor injuries and ailments. Before telemedicine, there was simply no option but to report to ERs and surgeries and waste precious time waiting to be seen by a doctor. ERs and waiting rooms tend to be hothouses of germs and viruses, and many a patient has left one of these places sicker than when they arrived! Telemedicine has changed this situation for the better. Telemedicine has made it possible to perform a lot of medical consultations that previously would have required an in-person visit remotely from the comfort of your own sick bed. Having the choice to not make the time-consuming trek to a germ-filled ER or surgery has hugely improved the lives of many patients.

Work Schedule

It used to be the case that when a person got ill to the extent that they required a visit to the doctor, they would almost certainly need to take a day off work. Even if a person was feeling good enough to work, a doctor’s appointment often meant they would need to use up a precious “sick day.” This was an unfortunate situation. Very often, the only thing necessitating that a person take the day off was the fact that they had to attend a time-consuming doctor’s appointment. Thanks to telemedicine, this situation has changed for the better. Telemedicine consultations can now be done so quickly that if a patient desires to attend work on the same day, they easily can. This gives patients the choice to stay home from work if they really need to, but also to attend work if they would prefer to do so.

Telemedicine is continuing to transform the world of health care with every passing year. Patients are able to easily connect with physicians or specialists through the use of video or online chats and can access more effective treatment plans by using technology to transfer their records and medical data. There are several changes that will take place in the next 12 months and are likely to have a positive effect on both patients and medical professionals. Here’s a look at some of the telemedicine trends that will occur over the next year.

Increase in people who use telemedicine

Telemedicine is a quickly growing field and has been making great strides for the last several decades. As more doctors, hospitals, and health care providers begin to use telehealth platforms, those numbers will only continue to grow in 2019. According to a recent report, around 7 million patients used telehealth measures in the U.S. in 2018. That’s up from 350,000 patients in 2013 – which is actually a 19,000% increase in just five years. This number is only expected to grow in the future as more people use telehealth services for various medical needs (from managing a chronic condition to consulting a physician about an injury).

More access to specialists

As telemedicine measures are used by more people, there will be increased access to physicians and specialists. Regardless of where they live, people can connect with medical professionals to help with diagnoses or treatment plans. More and more doctors using telemedicine means that the network will continue to broaden. This means that patients could even seek help from physicians internationally, ensuring that they’re always getting the best care regardless of their location. More access will lead to a wider knowledge base (especially with chronic or rare conditions) that can only benefit patient care in the future.

At the pace it’s currently moving, telemedicine is set to keep advancing quickly over the next twelve months.

Better remote services

An increasing number of health care companies are expanding their remote services in a variety of fields, including dermatology, mental health, addiction treatment, stroke care, and many others. These services, which can be conducted without patients having to make in-person visits, can be cost-saving and can increase the chances a patient will have of receiving timely care. Currently, more than half the hospitals in the U.S. offer some type of telehealth options for their patients.

Remote services also allow for shorter wait times at doctor’s office waiting rooms and emergency rooms (since patients with non-life-threatening cases can connect with a physician remotely via a video chat). In fact, according to statistics from the American Medical Association and Wellness Council of America, more than 75% of doctor, urgent care, or ER visits could be handled effectively through a phone or video chat.

Increased ability to share records

As a larger number of companies are relying on technology to improve their patient care, telemedicine is helping by allowing medical professionals to more easily and efficiently share records and test results with colleagues and specialists, regardless of distance. Patients then receive better care because it’s so easy for information to be shared within a treatment team or if the patient is transferring to another physician. Improvements in telehealth technology also mean that patients have more convenient access to their own medical records and test results online.

More telemedicine coverage from insurance companies

In the last several years, more than 29 states have already required health insurance coverage for patients who were using telemedicine. In 2015, more than 25 states mandated that patients had to be reimbursed for services from telemedicine. More telehealth measures face Congress every year for even more coverage throughout the U.S. Right now, all Medicaid agencies cover at least some form of telehealth services. There’s also been an increase in employers offering telemedicine options. Since insurance companies are quickly learning that telemedicine can save them money, it will surely only be a matter of time before these options are fully covered in all 50 states, for a variety of treatment services.

Patients and doctors alike will benefit from many of the upcoming developments in telemedicine.

Further acceptance

The more the public (and the government) is able to see the vast improvements in health care due to telemedicine, the more widespread the practice will be. A larger number of doctors and hospitals will rely on telemedicine to provide care, and it will be more common for people to use telemedicine options instead of visiting a physician or hospital in person. In the future, it’s likely that telemedicine will become an even more accepted and valued element of health care, becoming something that most people will depend upon when getting treatment. Patients are already all for using telemedicine – a recent study showed that more than 74% of people would be open to treatment through this method.

As a growing trend in health care, telemedicine will soon be more accepted and widely used in the future. As patients look for more accessible and convenient health care options, telemedicine is perhaps the best answer for better care and treatment.