Telehealth Myths: Is a virtual visit as effective as in-person care?
We're here to address the myth that video visits or virtual visits, telemedicine, however you want to call it, is lower value and less quality than coming in person for a regular doctor visit. The fact of the matter is virtual visits are as high a quality as in-person visits and in many ways are more valuable because they're much more convenient to our patients.
Relationship and Discussion
Most of the relationship and discussion can be carried out virtually just as well as they can be done in person. We teach in medical school that 80% of diagnoses we get come from listening to people and getting their history really well. We can do this just as well through telemedicine.
Examination
We can do a lot of physical examination through video, and in that way it's a lot better than telephone. If you can do a video visit and we can do a lot of looking, we can do different maneuvers and may ask you to participate in the physical examination as well. There's a lot of kind of the general head-to-toe physical examination that we do.
We can right-size to what the need is at the time, and what we're learning more through research is that going head to toe and doing the annual physical just as a rite of practice is really not as valuable as people think it is. The conversation, the discussion, the health risk assessment, and then following up any pertinent things that need to be followed up through physical examination is where the value comes in.
Convenience
Virtual visits can be done at the kitchen table or in the living room without having to take time off from work to come by bus or by car to the clinician's office and sit in a waiting room and go through that process. A virtual visit can really right-size your needs to the services. There may be some times where we will need you to come in for laboratory testing or for some other piece of physical examination that can't be done, but that is by far the exception rather than the rule.
