Articles

Telehealth is gaining popularity among care providers and patients, and for good reason. Technology met the demands of users’ needs, and then word-of-mouth began to spread about the convenience, security, and affordability. For our skeptics, The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) use of telehealth is validating these facts.

The concept of providing remote healthcare services using the phone, video, and email has been tested for a couple of decades. Security and devices would improve, and then become more affordable as usage increased. Since telehealth technology has basically followed public trends over the past 10 years or so, associated costs to implement it are beyond reasonable for both patient and provider. Now any individual with a computer with a webcam, or even just a smartphone, can utilize telehealth services with a care provider who pays a small monthly fee.

TTC has been providing secure video conference services for several years, now. Psychiatry is the most popular form of treatment, and we also offer outpatient substance use and primary care telehealth services.

Negative press aside, the VA provides good healthcare to those who’ve served in the US armed forces. It’s a good measure to look at their success with telehealth because they provide services to individuals in every part of the nation. According to healthcareitnews.com, “More than 600,000 patients – or 11 percent of the nation’s veteran population – received some form of telehealth in 2013…” and “…45 percent live in rural areas and might not otherwise have been able to receive needed care…” In this article, Telehealth critical piece of VA care, the VA claims that telehealth reduces healthcare costs by about $2000 per person, per year.

But let’s take money out of the picture and consider if costs for home telehealth care was covered on a more comprehensive level by insurance and public sources. Seniors are a good example for this because many of them need to move into institutions to manage their health care needs. Regular travel to a provider is just too difficult. So it really tugs at the heart strings to read that “…some 40,000 were able to use those services to live independently, thus avoiding long-term institutional care.”

Knowing all of this, it makes sense for you to ask your provider if they offer telehealth services. If you receive services from us, please feel free to ask.