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.

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 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.

During this year, many strides have been taken to implement more telemedicine services throughout the U.S. Patients have been more able to rely on remote options and video chats with physicians to help augment their treatment. They’ve also been receiving care for a wide variety of conditions and illnesses (with help from diagnosing the flu to developing a fast treatment plan during a stroke event). There are so many advantages to including telehealth options in a patient’s care, so here’s a look at some of the most beneficial aspects of using telemedicine in 2018.

More convenient care

One study notes that nearly 74% of Americans would be willing to use telemedicine services versus seeing their doctor in person. A huge benefit of telehealth is that patients have an easier time getting access to medical professionals. Using online tools like video chats, patients can connect with their physicians when it’s most convenient for them (instead of always having to work around the doctor’s schedule). Doctors are then able to have productive consultations with their patient without all the distractions an office can provide. These communications are more convenient because patients don’t have to wait until their next scheduled appointment if they have questions or concerns. Such convenience also permits patients to report any early warning signs about symptoms they might be worried about. This makes telemedicine a great option for encouraging individuals to maintain regular check-ins with their doctors, as well as supporting the careful monitoring of a patient’s condition or overall health.

Access to care for rural patients

Before the advent of telemedicine, patients who lived in remote or rural areas were often unable to get the proper care they needed. Many doctors or hospitals were just located too far from their residences. However, now telemedicine has created a way for patients to connect with doctors and specialists easily – as long as they have the Internet, they can access medical treatment. More access equals a greater chance of properly diagnosing and treating many serious conditions and creating more treatment parity for rural patients.

Ease of access is one of the primary benefits of telemedicine in 2018.

More access to specialists

It used to be that many people were limited in their treatment options because of where they lived. Nowadays, telemedicine is able to connect patients with the appropriate physicians they need, no matter their location. This means there will be improvements in the care of people who didn’t have direct access to the proper specialists before. Patients with specific needs or with rare conditions now have the ability to communicate and work with medical professionals throughout the country. They’ll be receiving the best care possible, even if they don’t live near the specialist.

Quicker treatment options

Another huge benefit of telemedicine is that patients can access quicker care because of this technology. Many telehealth measures mean that physicians can diagnose and treat a patient in minutes (versus a long waiting time at the ER or to get in to see a doctor). This fast treatment can literally be lifesaving for critical conditions like strokes or heart attacks. Telemedicine also eliminates some of the red tape surrounding health care – treatment teams can more easily communicate and collaborate with each other in the patient’s best interests. Medical records and test results can also be sent quickly online and through databases, so there’s less waiting time during that stage of the patient’s care.

More streamlined care in doctor’s offices and ERs

If more people use telemedicine, the care patients receive during in-person visits will also improve. In fact, statistics from the American Medical Association and Wellness Council of America state that more than 75% of doctor, urgent care, and emergency room visits could actually be handled effectively through a phone or video chat. If patients with non-critical injuries or illnesses can be taken care of with video chats, that leaves the in-person visits for more serious or life-threatening cases. This change means that not only would patients receive more streamlined and quicker treatment when they actually go in person to a doctor’s office or an ER, but also that wait times for these places would be shortened. This results in patients getting faster, more efficient, and more effective treatment when they need it.

In 2018, if you have a smartphone and an internet connection, all the benefits of telemedicine are available to you.

Lower costs for patients

A great advantage of telemedicine is that patients can save money by turning to telehealth options instead of in-person visits. These options can be cheaper because doctors don’t have to charge for office fees or other add-on costs. Patients can also save money on transportation costs they’d have to shell out if they needed to get to an office. Likewise, physicians, hospitals, and insurance companies have all seen decreases in their costs because of more patients using telemedicine to receive treatment.

With more patients using telemedicine, a new trend has emerged of patients being more involved in their care and more engaged with their own health care. This can lead to patients being more likely to opt out of harmful behaviors (like unhealthy eating or smoking), which can result in an overall improved healthiness. People who are leading healthier lifestyles will also end up lowering health care costs both for themselves and for the population at large. There are many beneficial aspects of telemedicine that are only continuing to make major improvements in the health care field.

While breakthroughs in medical knowledge have been impressively (and wonderfully!) common over the past few hundred years, the way in which medical consultations have been carried out has stayed rather similar throughout this time. Doctors have been treating their patients face-to-face inside their treatment rooms for most of medical history. This has often meant that patients have needed to travel large distances to see a doctor. It also meant that a doctor’s potential patient list was very limited by geography.

But all of this has changed over the past two decades. With the advent of super-fast internet and super-powerful mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, a new way of administering medical treatment has arrived on the scene and changed the medical landscape almost beyond recognition.

Telemedicine has made many things possible today that would have been beyond the dreams of even the most wildly imaginative futurists and sci-fi writers from recent history!

The telemedicine scene is bubbling with innovation and is a truly fascinating space to watch right now. Here are seven ways telemedicine is changing the medical landscape.

Patients Have Far More Choice

Telemedicine has given patients much more choice in which medical professionals they consult with. A patient can choose to be treated by a doctor who is based in another city, state, or even on the other side of the world if they wish. Whereas before patients could only deal with medical professionals located relatively near to them, it is now possible for somebody to be treated by a doctor located a vast distance away. This is a big change for the better in the medical landscape.

ER waiting times are being reduced thanks to telemedicine.

Hospital Emergency Rooms Are Much Less Crowded

Thanks to telemedicine, a lot of medical conditions that are relatively minor but would still have landed somebody in an ER can now be treated remotely. The fact that a lot of conditions that would have required an ER visit in the past are now being treated using telemedicine means that ERs have become less clogged up. This is a profound change for the better, as it means that seriously ill patients who really do need treatment at an ER can be taken care of more quickly and more efficiently than ever before.

Many Medical Consultations Are Much More Time-Efficient

Throughout human history, receiving medical treatment tended to be very time-consuming. Traveling to doctors’ surgeries, queuing up, repeat appointments… All of these things took up a lot of time. This has changed dramatically since the advent of telemedicine. Medical treatment is now far more time-efficient. Travel times have been reduced (in many cases to zero) and queuing in a doctor’s waiting room is now unnecessary in many instances. Telemedicine has made receiving medical treatment much less time-consuming than ever before.

Less Competitive Medical Professionals Are Going Out of Business

Due to the fact that telemedicine allows patients to give their business to medical practitioners in any distant corner or the country or even world, doctors can no longer afford to be lazy and to rely on mere geographical proximity to provide them with a customer base. In today’s telemedicine free market, competition is rife. The best doctors get more and more patients, and other doctors see their businesses die. This is a great thing for patients and the medical industry on the whole.

Tech-savvy medical professionals are leading the way thanks to the advent of telemedicine.

Medical Professionals Are Needing To Be More Tech-Savvy

Telemedicine is developing and improving at a rapid pace. This means that medical professionals are having to study hard to keep up with the technological innovation taking place. Not only do doctors need to keep up-to-date with advancements in medical knowledge, they also need to be highly tech-savvy. This results in an increased workload for medical professionals. But it is surely a good thing for patients, as doctors become more and more highly trained and au fait with the cutting edge of human tech knowledge.

Medical Professionals Can Operate Successful Practices Outside of Major Hub Locations

No longer do medical professionals, especially those who specialize in elective procedures, need to set up their clinics in main urban hubs, such as New York, Chicago, L.A., or Houston, in order to attract patients. Thanks to telemedicine, it is now possible for a doctor to operate from a smaller, more remote location and still attract a lot of clients simply by doing a lot of their consultations (and promotion) online.

Certain Medical Industry Jobs Are Being Lost

Telemedicine is resulting in some medical industry jobs becoming obsolete. This is unfortunate for the people who lose their jobs, but it may well prove to be good for consumers and the industry as a whole as treatment becomes more efficient, more streamlined, and more effective overall.

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

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

With telemedicine, you can contact your doctor immediately.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Better access to health care, regardless of location

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

2. More access to specialists

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

3. Lowered health care costs

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

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

4. Better care during flu season

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

5. Increased access to eye health options

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

6. More tools to fight strokes

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

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

7. Spend less time waiting

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

8. Less crowded ERs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your eyes are one of the most important parts of your body. They are called the windows to the soul and they give you access to what surrounds you and what’s ahead of you. However, they are delicate and can get damaged without you even knowing it. It’s very important to keep on top of your eye health, and telemedicine is one of the best ways to do it in a convenient and affordable way.

Telemedicine is experiencing an explosion in popularity at the moment. In a society that allows you to order dinner, find a date, and buy clothes from your phone, there’s no reason why you can’t access health care through your phone too. Simply put, telemedicine is the combination of medical or diagnostic advice with telecommunications technology. It has been used since the advent of telecommunications, usually in war zones or other disaster situations where doctors can’t access their patients, but now patients are turning the tables and using telemedicine for their own convenience.

Convenience is the reason that many busy professionals are turning to telemedicine. Traditional primary care physicians usually operate under traditional office hours and are located in places that are convenient to them, as opposed to convenient to their patients. If you’re someone with a busy job, it can be difficult to take time out for medical appointments, so unless you’re feeling very unwell, you’re unlikely to make time for a doctor’s appointment. But telemedical appointments can be done from the comfort of your home, at a time that suits you, so you’re not at the mercy of someone else’s schedule.

Did you know you can use your smartphone to access optical health care?

The key to telemedicine being used for optic health is the camera. While a phone camera can’t rival an optician’s chair, you can still use it to give your telemedical doctor a look at what’s going on. In order to see an optician via telemedicine, you just need to find a specialist and either make an appointment or use a drop-in service. You might have to wait in a virtual waiting room, but once you get connected to a medical professional, it’s just like a regular doctor’s appointment. They’ll ask how they can help you and what the nature of your problem is. If you have a specific eye issue, they’ll ask to look at it and offer you a diagnosis based on what they can see.

Telemedical doctors have excellent links to secondary physicians, so if you need to be referred to an ophthalmologist, they can send the referral directly as opposed to you having to make a second appointment. They will also link in with your pharmacy so that if you need medication, the prescription will be ready and waiting for you and you won’t have to wait. As well as being more convenient, telemedicine is usually more affordable than traditional primary care, because the doctors who operate online do not have the traditional overheads associated with running a doctor’s office. Opticians also have the double whammy of having to act as a sales front for glasses and lenses, whereas a telemedical optician does not have to fork out for fancy displays, even if they have access to the most chic glasses. If you are in need of new specs, you’ll still be able to order them online, usually at a discounted rate relative to a traditional optician.

If you don’t have time to head to an in-person optical appointment, why not try scheduling one via telemedicine?

A telemedical doctor can also give you general advice on eye care. Eye infections are a lot more common than you may think and can have a variety of causes. In our increasingly technological world, eyes can also experience tiredness thanks to excessive screen time. Your telemedical doctor will be able to give you advice on avoiding eye exhaustion and how to best take breaks when you’re at work. In addition, if you have a condition like diabetes that can have a negative impact on your vision, your telemedical doctor can give you advice on how to avoid unnecessary damage, through lifestyle changes and adherence to your medication program.

Health care, including eye care, has been one way for a long time, and telemedicine is changing the game for doctors and patients alike. Patients no longer feel the need to go out of their way to access health care in an inconvenient manner when they can see a qualified doctor from the comfort of their own home. Don’t be afraid to try telemedicine for your optic health. You’ll be empowered and comfortable in the knowledge that you can take care of your eyes while not going out of your way to access health care for someone else’s convenience.

Addiction can be an insidious and challenging thing to treat. Many addicts are hesitant to get treatment, or are unable to because of a lack of access to treatment facilities or specialists, or because of a lack of funds to pay for their treatment. However, more steps are being taken so that patients are able to use telemedicine to access effective, high-quality addiction treatments.

Telemedicine is the usage of technology to aid in the health care process. Whether it is video chats between a doctor and their patient for management of symptoms, or frequent email check-ins instead of in-person doctor’s office visits, telemedicine is helping to revolutionize the way patients communicate with their health care providers. With addiction treatment, individuals can take advantage of more personalized and frequent care from addiction specialists, physicians, and counselors to help with their ability to achieve and maintain sobriety.

Here’s a look at some ways that addiction patients can benefit from using telemedicine.

Easy access to interventional measures

One of the most important steps in the process of addiction treatment is to get the person to admit they need help. Counselors or physicians can have discussions with their patients through online video chats to help facilitate interventions and encourage the patient to seek proper treatment. Interventional measures can ensure that more patients are able to start the process of fighting their addictions, and telemedicine options make this step more convenient and simple than traditional in-person interventions.

Get help even if they live in remote areas

Many individuals who live in remote areas are unable to access appropriate help for their addictions. Telemedicine options can bring some treatment elements straight to the person’s home. This means that even patients who don’t have immediate access to top-notch treatment facilities can still access high-quality care, no matter where they’re located.

Seeking treatment for addiction can be a stressful experience, but thankfully telemedicine can make things a lot easier.

Access to addiction specialists

The recovery process for those suffering from addiction can be a challenging and arduous journey. Individuals have a better shot at maintaining sobriety if they have access to counselors or physicians who specialize in addiction treatment. With telemedicine options like video chats or email communications, patients can easily access the very best and most well-respected specialists in the field, with the hope of obtaining recovery in a more supported and guided atmosphere.

Finding online support groups or in-person meetings

Telemedicine options use technology to develop stronger and more effective recovery methods. Patients can use the internet to locate in-person meetings near them if they would like to attend support groups (like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous). If individuals are uncomfortable seeking in-person help or are unable to get transportation to a meeting, they can also use the internet to connect with online support groups. These groups can be really helpful in encouraging sober lifestyles and helping patients interact with other individuals who are having similar experiences and struggles. There are even apps patients can download on their smartphones that can assist in promoting sobriety and help track progress of the individual’s recovery.

Provides privacy

Addicts who need help might be hesitant to seek treatment if they’re worried about friends, family, or co-workers finding out about their addiction. With telemedicine, patients can seek help from the privacy of their own homes, so they never have to worry about running into people they know when they visit a doctor or therapist’s office. This element of telemedicine is essential, because this privacy might mean that more patients can get the help they need without worrying about the stigma of being discovered seeking treatment for addiction.

Through telemedicine, people struggling with addiction can get the treatment and support they need.

More affordable addiction treatment options

Telemedicine also has the great benefit of being cheaper than most in-person doctor’s appointments or therapy sessions. Virtual appointments can help the patient save money, since they don’t have to pay the same doctor’s office fees they would if they were seeing a doctor in person. Additionally, to visit an in-person specialist or counselor, individuals are often faced with paying for transportation, parking fees, etc. With telemedicine options, patients can skip extra fees and can save money instantly – which can be crucial for patients who might have limited funds during their recovery process.

Can view progress reports/updates

Telemedicine can also streamline the process of addiction treatment by allowing health care providers to connect directly with their patients – any time, any place. Providers can check in with their patients frequently to monitor progress and receive updates on how their patient is doing. This process is more convenient for both the patient and the provider, who doesn’t have to schedule in-person meetings. These check-ins can also benefit the patient’s progress by allowing them to be held accountable with frequent communication with members of their treatment team. This accountability and constant contact can result in a better shot at achieving and maintaining sobriety for the patient.

Telemedicine is changing the world of health care, and these changes are also evident in the treatment of addiction. With major benefits for both the patient and the provider, telemedicine can definitely help make the road to sobriety a smoother one.