Southwest Telehealth Resource Center Blog

“Take care with telehealth” – it’s an urging not a warning. Unless you have been a caregiver of a loved one, you may not appreciate the potential mental, physical, quality of life and financial impacts. My sister bore the burden of caring for our mother when Alzheimer dementia stole her sharp mind. On the rare occasions when my mother stayed with me for weeks at a time, I was overcome with anxiety, feeling like there were tight bands around my chest, and my normally low blood pressure shot up. This tracks with evidence that female caregivers experience more psychological distress than males (Families Caring for an Aging America. 2016).

Over the past year, many individuals have been staying home to help support public safety measures and reduce the impact of COVID-19 on our communities. This was challenging, but current technological advances have allowed most of us to continue to stay healthy.

Part of this technology is telemedicine, which is also referred to as telehealth, telecare, telewellness, and more.

Can you imagine the opportunity to receive some of your prenatal care without leaving your home? The stress of pregnancy is certainly exacerbated by the eight to fourteen recommended prenatal visits, particularly if the woman has full-time work, lives far from the clinician, has other children at home, or lives in a part of the country with weather or other factors than makes it difficult to drive safely.

Published data show that these visits are safe, with the same outcomes as women who had traditional prenatal care visits. Patient satisfaction is high, particularly among women for which the pregnancy is not her first.

Telemedicine is when technology is used to deliver care at a distance. A physician or some other healthcare provider is in a different location than the patient, delivering care virtually, over video or phone. Since the spread of the Covid-19 virus in 2020 telehealth and telemedicine coverage has been expanded, which was previously covered only in a limited fashion. Therefore, there has been a large increase in Medicare recipients seeing physicians using telemedicine. Many types of visits in most specialties can be handled through a virtual or telemedicine visit. This is especially important for the Medicare population, since it is mitigating their risk by not going to an office with exposure to others. In some circumstances it may still be necessary to do an in-person visit, for example to get an x-ray exam, get labs done or have a procedure done. Here are five helpful tips to help you best prepare for a Medicare telemedicine appointment.

Well… not quite; but it may not be what you think. I’m not here to make the case about the importance of good oral health, the impacts of poor oral health on overall health and chronic disease, the potential to lower health care costs and our countless opportunities to integrate oral health into health care services. Rather I ask that you join me to learn just a bit more about what teledentistry is and how it can be used to expand access, provide education and elevate team-based care.