If you are actively canceling / postponing your scheduled patients due to the COVID-19, I need you to stop it, right now! There is an alternative that can prevent you from furloughing your staff and take good care of your patients.
I am asking you to implement a teleoptometry process into your practice and run 100% of your scheduled patients through it. Forget the money for a second and let’s talk about implementing a process that takes good care of your patients.
Before we start, let me ask you my favorite question: Which is better One or Two?
One: Patient who is scheduled for a routine eye exam has his appointment canceled and is told to reschedule when this is “all over.”
- Or -
Two: Patient who is scheduled for a routine eye exam is converted to a Virtual At-Home Office Visit (VA-HOV). During this visit, he mentions that his eyes have been “a little itchy” for the past few days, but he has been seeing great. As a result of the visit, you prescribe a drop and SCHEDULE his comprehensive exam for some later date.
Even if you forget about the money, you know that Two is better.
Now let’s talk a minute about the Standard of Care which many of you are using as an excuse to not do this. As a result of this VAHOV, you do not know his VA, his IOP, and you haven’t screened his peripheral retina for pathology. All of that is true, but you wouldn’t have done any of that if you had canceled his appointment either.
Rule # 1 for teleoptometry is that a doctor must be the one who makes all decisions and clinical judgements based on the data that they can obtain and all other factors affecting the situation. This includes the risk of exposing the patient, the staff and themselves to a deadly pandemic.
And oh, by the way – Since money does matter, you can bill for the VAHOV too.
There are a lot of people talking about billing and coding of teleoptometry visits, but I can show you how to develop plans and strategies that will help you provide care in a way you can be proud of.
Watch Leadership OD for info on how to:
Set up your team to work at home
Find the best platform for communicating with patients
Write the processes that match your system
Go!
Let’s attack this together. Let me know if I can help. -Mike