Telehealth provides medical services, health information, and health education through remote technologies.
Easier Access to Specialists
More than three-quarters of U.S. counties have a psychiatric shortage, and more than half of primary care clinicians have difficulty referring patients to psychiatric practitioners. Other mental health specialists, such as registered nurses and licensed medical social workers, are also in limited supply.
In alleviating the psychiatrist shortfall, the best approach will be to encourage more people to pursue careers in psychiatry first. This will mean providing good wages and working conditions and ensuring constructive time with patients.
Providers are eager to work hard, but they want to see results. To feel satisfied, behavioral health practitioners must communicate with patients. Telehealth enables psychiatrists to see patients nationwide.
Telehealth Alleviates Patient Access to Mental Healthcare
Due to the setting’s ability to give practitioners more control, telehealth is among the secrets to a better work-life balance. To regain that balance, healthcare providers can spend time with their families during breaks, socialize with their pets, prepare meals, or perform other household chores.
Telehealth reduces provider burnout by eradicating long commutes, which can be strenuous and expensive. It also allows practitioners to interact with patients from the comfort of their homes.
Offering coffee, a doctors’ lounge, and quiet meditation spaces are lovely touches. However, they don’t deal with the fundamental issue of helping clinicians reclaim a healthy work-life balance. Telehealth does so instantly and directly.
Convenience in Scheduling, Billing, and Prescribing
Patients have access to high-quality tele-psychiatrists 24/7 in the emergency room. This reduces wait times, and ED stays. Psychiatric patients stay three times longer than non – psychiatric patients.
With telepsychiatry, emergency room doctors can get the advice they need to treat patients with severe mental health crises. Tele-psychiatry also provides substantial cost savings by reducing the need for psychiatric boarding.