I love telehealth. Lately I’ve been suffering with pretty extreme symptoms from some of my known chronic illnesses and some illness I don’t know about yet. Telehealth visits have saved me so much time over the past 3 years. (And also parking money!) I give some tips as to how to prepare for a visit and why I think they need to stay.
Watch the video below
If you prefer to read it, here is the transcript:
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:19:14
Sometimes chronic illness kicks ya in the butt and that’s what’s been happening to me over the past couple of weeks. For many months, I’ve actually been having issues breathing and have had to see multiple different specialists. And it’s been incredibly taxing. But telehealth has made it a lot easier for me.
00:00:19:14 – 00:01:03:20
So prior to 2020, I did utilize telehealth services, but it tended to be for only urgent matters, like when I get another strep throat infection. After 2020, when all physicians were kind of forced into having to do telehealth, I absolutely loved it. Not only could it save me hours on end of having to drive to physician’s offices in Los Angeles traffic, park, pay $15 for my car to be parked there, for then physician to be late for me to then get into the physician’s office and then to see me for 5 to 10 minutes and tell me that I needed to go have this blood work or I needed to have this test, yada, yada.
00:01:03:23 – 00:01:28:27
We all know what happens when we go to the physician. Depending upon the situation sometimes we don’t necessarily need to be there physically. That’s where telehealth really helped me. It saves me hours of time having to drive to and from the physician’s office. And it also allows me to not have to spend money on parking. I know that a lot of people feel this way
00:01:29:05 – 00:01:57:29
And when we were all kind of forced to do it, I know that there were some access issues for individuals, but it really is a good way to bring high quality care, particularly to individuals in rural areas or individuals that have incredibly tight schedules or are caregivers to children or other individuals, because it allows you to not have to allocate that excess time to driving.
00:01:58:01 – 00:02:23:25
Now, why am I doing this video on telehealth? Obviously, I’ll probably do another one months from now. That is incredibly in-depth. I’ve had a bit of a couple of weeks. My symptoms have been pretty bad, which is why we’re in a slightly different angle of my office. This is actually the angle that you would see if you were actually a doctor having a telehealth visit with me because I’m sitting at my computer.
00:02:23:28 – 00:02:28:07
But the reason why I wanted to create this is just to
00:02:28:07 – 00:02:33:25
let everyone know some of the tips that I have for good telehealth visits.
00:02:33:25 – 00:02:44:01
So for telehealth visit, I like to do all of the prep before the visit actually starts. I have a thermometer. I take my temperature,
00:02:44:01 – 00:02:49:11
I have a pulse oximeter that takes my O2 levels as well as my pulse.
00:02:49:11 – 00:02:54:06
I have a blood pressure cuff so I can take my blood pressure. This also takes my pulse.
00:02:54:06 – 00:02:59:07
And when I started to have really bad breathing issues,
00:02:59:07 – 00:03:06:17
it was really difficult for me to get to the doctor. And I know that every single time you go in, they utilize the peak flow meter when you go into a pulmonologist.
00:03:06:17 – 00:03:30:05
So I found one online that was created by a doctor. It’s not sponsored. I just happened to find this one. I find it extremely helpful and that way I can actually keep track of what’s going on with my lungs and whether or not I’m outside of the normal range. Even when I’m not with my physician.
00:03:30:05 – 00:03:55:04
So first I do the prep before the appointment. A lot of times the appointment office will end up calling me and I will give them all that information. I will tell them whether or not any of my prescription medications have changed since the last time I saw a physician. I can then set up my little work area. I am in my office, which is this lovely space here, and I close the door.
00:03:55:04 – 00:04:18:07
I do not have my dog in with me, even though he’s absolutely lovely. Sometimes he can be a bit of a pain in the butt. So quiet environment, comfortable environment. I make it as comfortable as possible. I make it easy for the physician to see me. I make it easy for me to back up if I have to in the room, depending upon the type of exam that the physician wants to give via telehealth.
00:04:18:09 – 00:04:33:11
And I also try to have a list on my phone of bullet points that I want to talk to the physician about. Obviously, not everything is going to be handled every single time I can see a physician, but at least I have an idea as to what I want to talk to them about.
00:04:33:11 – 00:04:41:25
I also make sure to have Internet access, and I know that there are a lot of people that don’t have Internet access, but I try to make it as
00:04:41:25 – 00:04:49:05
easy as possible for me and the physician for us to have good, clear communication. Now,
00:04:49:05 – 00:04:52:13
this has happened a couple of times during my appointments where
00:04:52:13 – 00:04:57:08
here in Los Angeles, because during the summer it is very hot all the time.
00:04:57:11 – 00:05:19:10
We occasionally will get power outages and that happened to me the other day while I was in the middle of a session with my primary care physician. I immediately stopped what I was trying to do on the computer, and I got onto my phone, detached my phone from my wifi network, utilized data services to then log in through the portal on my phone.
00:05:19:12 – 00:05:44:03
So there’s always a lot of different options for a lot of different physicians in order for you to access them. And sometimes utilizing the phone for most people is kind of the best option. I personally like to use my computer because I have two screens on my computer and I can sit with either notes on one side or something on the other side for me to take notes that the physician is telling me what to do or when to get more bloodwork.
00:05:44:03 – 00:05:54:09
I make sure to follow up with all the things the physician has said to do, whether that be to have different test or to make an appointment with their staff.
00:05:54:11 – 00:06:13:27
And then I’m able to stand up and go about my day as opposed to having to then get back in my car and drive a half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour, depending upon where I’m going to a physician. It has saved me so much time, and I know that a lot of other patients have saved them a lot of time.
00:06:14:00 – 00:06:56:01
I tend to have a lot of physicians appointments. I think the amount of physicians appointments I have had, I have probably been at least one physician appointment a week since the beginning of the year because of what’s been going on with me medically. So try it. Continue to advocate for telehealth. Tell your representatives that you want it to stay around, because I do know that some of the protections for telehealth services are starting to go away, which is another thing that I wanted to bring up is because I work in advocacy, these are the type of things that I am trying to advocate for patients.
00:06:56:03 – 00:07:23:01
We really need telehealth services. It makes it not only easy for chronic illness patients or people with disabilities or caregivers of individuals with disabilities to get the care that they need. But it really helps the rural populations of the United States the most because they sometimes do not have access to specialists within a ten hour radius. So telehealth can be a good in-between option.
00:07:23:01 – 00:07:49:01
Now, I’m not saying that telehealth necessarily fills in the gaps for everything, but more and more people are doing studies on how telehealth services can be beneficial for physicians and patients, how a diagnosis can be done through telehealth and that it is a good adjunct for in between appointments that you have with some of your specialists, it can be extremely helpful in a lot of circumstances.
00:07:49:02 – 00:08:04:10
So I know this video was a little short, it was a little different, but that’s because I am feeling absolutely miserable this week, which happens. I’m actually being monitored right now with a cardiac device.
00:08:04:12 – 00:08:22:15
We’ll see. I will let you know. Do another video. If I end up having some sort of an arrhythmia, I doubt it, given the fact that they have thought that I may have one for years but have never been able to find it. But we’ll see. So thanks so much. I’ll see you next time.