Technological progress has firmly entered our life and has comfortably settled in it. Living in the 21st century, people are used to resorting to the help of all kinds of modern technologies, which are being improved more and more every day. And now people are starting to discover a new service – telemedicine solutions, for remote consultations of doctors of various professional categories. This type of consultation is called telemedicine and at the moment has proven itself well in the medical field. What can a patient expect from “telemedicine” or “telehealth” and what is required in order to get to an online appointment?
A doctor at home, or how it works?
Telemedicine is a way for doctors to communicate with patients using modern telecommunications means. The creation of such a service unloads doctors as much as possible. Moreover, saves patients from waiting in queues at clinics and hospitals.
One more significant advantage of such a service is the opportunity to communicate with your doctor during foreign trips, when there is absolutely no opportunity to come to an appointment in person. Therefore, patients who have an individual attending physician are reluctant to seek help from unfamiliar doctors. And these are just some of the positive aspects of this service.
Today, the healthcare industry is actively developing in the direction of medical care in general. Working closely and productively with various IT companies that provide custom software development services. One of these companies is Exoft, which has shown itself well in the global market of web solutions, in particular medical organizations.
Is such medicine legal?
You may be surprised, but this kind of services has been completely legal since July 2017, it was then that the federal law (FZ – 242) was adopted, which introduced some amendments to the main legislative acts. This type of acts coordinates the issues of scientific and technical processes in the field of public health protection. It is as a result of these amendments that such a direction as “information technologies” could appear-with the clarification that it is about ensuring the cooperation of medical workers among themselves, with the subject (or, if necessary, with their legal representatives) at a distance. And in addition to the law, in the same year, the Ministry of Health issued an order on the procedure for providing assistance for the telemedicine service.
What does a patient get when visiting a doctor online?
If we analyze in more detail the legislation that allows conducting online medicine, then some important subtleties appear. It is important to remember that according to the law, a medical worker does not have the right to make a diagnosis, write a prescription or establish therapy without holding a personal meeting. The first appointment of the patient is always carried out at a personal meeting with a medical professional. And if it so happened that you got sick, then using the telemedicine service, you will receive general preventive recommendations and urgent advice to visit the attending physician in the near future in person.
However, after conducting an appointment in person and examining the patient, a medical professional has the right to consult you remotely, according to the developed treatment plan. At the same time, a previously prescribed correction of treatment is allowed, but by the same doctor who conducted the face-to-face appointment. With the writing out of medical prescriptions for medicines in electronic form.
At the moment, such consultations are conducted by general practitioners, such as internists and pediatricians. Highly focused specialists still prefer face-to-face consultations in their areas.
Who is Telemedicine for?
Unfortunately, the availability of telemedicine is not yet at the highest level due to the inability to get advice on an OMI policy (Obligatory medical insurance policy). This is due to the low technical equipment of the workplace of a doctor who provides services in municipal and city medical institutions.
As for paid medical clinics, in this case, the telehealth service will cost less than a full-time visit to a specialist. And saving time on a hike and waiting time plays an important role in choosing such a service.
What is necessary to use the service?
In fact, it does not take much effort to get a service. Initially, you need a desire, a certain amount of money, a stable Internet connection and any of the communication devices: a computer, phone or tablet equipped with video communication and a microphone. Next, we decide where we want to get a telemedicine service:
We contact (just in case) we will contact our city polyclinic and clarify whether they practice the “state” version of telemedicine;
We contact the selected commercial clinic (using an Internet search) in your locality, because initially the reception will be full-time, and subsequent consultations will be conducted online.
Telemedicine and scammers
Unfortunately, the problem of fraud is not new for people. But the field of telemedicine appeared relatively recently and has become a gold mine for scammers.
What should I do to avoid becoming a victim of scammers? Initially, choosing honey. an institution that provides such a service should ask if the clinic has a license to provide such services.
The second point in choosing an organization with an online consulting service will be the presence of a good reputation. As a rule, these are clinics or services that have been on the market for a long time and have personal websites and mobile applications.
