Healthcare Before COVID-19 (BC-19) and After Covid-19 (AC-19)
Before-COVID-19 healthcare: handshakes, in-office visits, long wait times, no face-masks and more. After-COVID-19 healthcare will include fist bumps, namaste greetings, more telemedicine visits, improved access, more face-masks.
There’s no question that healthcare in The United States, and beyond, is going through a Renaissance. However, before there is a “rebirth”, there must be a passing. Our old ways of doing things in healthcare is currently on thin ice while new approaches are being realized.
A lot of things will change from both the patient’s and the physician’s perspective. Hopefully, most of these things will be for the better and result in more affordable and accessible healthcare services for all.
Healthcare will be classified into the Before-COVID-19 era (BC-19) and After-COVID-19 era (AC-19).
Before-COVID-19 healthcare included handshakes, in-office visits, long wait times, no face-masks, limited access to patient education classes and a lot of portal messages between patient and doctor.
After-COVID-19 healthcare will include fist bumps, namaste greeting, more telemedicine visits, improved access, more face-masks, live patient education classes and less portal message conversations.
Below is a prediction of what will occur more frequently during the After-COVID-19 era.
More fist-bumps, Namaste and less handshakes
Dr. Andrew Ho, Cardiologist from Temecula, California stated one of the things he thinks will happen less is that doctors will not be shaking hands with their patients. This act, which created a sense of trust between a doctor and patient, will become a thing of the past. I could not agree more with Dr. Ho. There is a mutual understanding now that shaking hands is a great way to pass germs to one another. Going forward, we will be doing more fist bumps, bowing or greetings saying “namaste”, a common Hindu greeting.
More Telemedicine
There has been a push for telemedicine over the last several years. Telemedicine is basically, a video conference call, between a doctor and patient. A lot of doctors, such as myself, have been hesitant to make this change. We have been used to doing in person office visits and were satisfied with that approach.
Once the stay-home orders started to be enforced, traditional approaches to the patient-doctor visit were forever altered. Literally, overnight, doctors were forced to use telemedicine if they wanted to continue taking care of their patients — and bring home a paycheck. Within a week of the National Emergency in the United States, 90% of doctors around the country were doing telemedicine.
Personally, I will likely adjust my schedule to allow up to 2 hours per day of telemedicine visits. These appointments will likely be about 10 minutes each and will be primarily to reviews labs, imaging tests and to refill medications for patients who otherwise have stable health conditions.
Shorter wait times
It’s not uncommon for patients to have to wait many weeks sometimes even months to get in with their primary care doctor or their specialists. The delivery of healthcare is not very efficient, that I will admit.
However, in the After-COVID (AC-19) era, more doctors will adjust their schedules to allow a fixed number of telemedicine visits each day. This will shorten the patient wait-times for available appointments and provide improved access.
More face-masks
Going forward, we will see more people comfortable with their use of a face mask. We will see some amazing creations and one will have a facemask to match their work outfits. Prior to COVID-19, mask wearing individuals were assumed to be either immune compromised (i.e patient undergoing chemotherapy) individuals or germaphobes. After-COVID, mask users are considered to be enlightened and approaching the situation wisely.
Further, with increased mask use, we will see less deadly flu seasons in the years to come. Social distancing will become the norm during flu seasons. Less influenza infections means less hospitalizations, less pneumonia infections and less admissions to the intensive care units. Time will tell if this rings true.
More healthcare education
By this time, many of us have been using Zoom and other technology for conference calls and meetings. Going forward, we will see more online diabetic education classes, more weight loss classes and other chronic disease education classes. These will be taught by nutritionists, doctors, physician assistants (Pas), nurse practitioners (NPs) and other healthcare experts. Disease education and prevention will become a common thing in the After-COVID era.
Less Patient Portal Messages
Doctors will convert more complicated portal Messages to telemedicine visits. Ever since Medicare encouraged doctors to convert over to electronic medical records (EMRs), they also required that the patient have “email”, or portal access to their doctor. For the most part, the questions can be answered with a quick yes or no. However, commonly, patients send complicated questions in hopes of avoiding a copay and a visit
I personally will get 15 to 20 messages per day. I understand the convenience from my patient’s perspective, who wouldn’t want “quick copay-free healthcare” from the comfort of their own home?
However, most people don’t realize is that doctors are answering questions in between an actual patient visit, during their lunch “break” and sometimes even after they get home and put their children to sleep. There is no easy way to seek reimbursement for this type of care.
I wonder if Congress, who are mostly lawyers, would require attorneys to answer 15–20 legal questions each day without reimbursement? Under Medicare guidelines- they require doctors to do exactly this.
Therefore, After-COVID, a lot of doctors will forward their more “complicated portal messages” to their staff, who will call the patient and schedule a telemedicine appointment. In the end, this will allow more comprehensive care for the patient while allowing the doctor to bill insurance for the telemedicine visit. This is a win-win scenario.
Patients will be checking their vitals
Patients will be checking their blood pressure, pulse, oxygen levels and weight and report this data to their doctor during their telemedicine visit. This will cause patients to get more involved in their healthcare.
Further, this will give doctors confidence that they can provide quality care to their patient without actually seeing them in the office. Companies like Esvyda are already providing this type of technology which interacts with some electronic medical records.
Development of new technologies
New technologies will be developed that will allow patients to place their smart phone, or smart phone add-ons, over their heart and lungs to allow a more thorough physical exam by doctor.
Companies like Stethio have already developed these type of products but eventually they will be more affordable for all patients as more companies start to compete. Many already have an Apple watch, which allow users to evaluate their heart rate and screen for atrial fibrillation. The capacities of home based technologies is still being realized and we will see major improvements over the next few years. The improvements will make telemedicine more efficient.
