How to Leverage Telemedicine for Your Chiropractic Practice

As a business owner, it can be challenging to adjust to the unforeseeable future and how it will affect your practice. Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, many practices have had to make changes to see how they can still meet their patient’s needs. 

As a chiropractor, when you can’t make physical contact with your patients, what’s the next best thing? The answer is telemedicine. Telemedicine for chiropractors can provide an alternative to servicing your patients from the comfort of their own homes. 

 According to First Stop Health, 40% of millennials said a telemedicine option was extremely important and the vast majority of older adults were open to care through telemedicine. 

In order to fully understand how you can service your patients with telemedicine, it’s important that you know what telemedicine is and how it would be useful for your practice. Let’s begin. 

What is Telemedicine for Chiropractors?

Telemedicine visits within the healthcare industry have surged since COVID-19 began to spread across the globe. Patients continue to need safe and easy access to professional care. With telemedicine, they can communicate with you through video conferencing, email, texts, and live chat. 

Telemedicine services give you and your staff a secure way to help patients while practicing social distancing. They can use their smartphones, tablets, desktops, or laptops to have a video call with you and exchange information, give medical advice, monitor their condition, and more. 

Learn More: Sending Follow Up Emails to Build Patient Loyalty

3 Telemedicine Use Cases for Chiropractors 

As a chiropractor, you’re probably wondering how you could possibly use telemedicine when your work involves having physical contact with your patients. We’re here to tell you that it’s still possible for you to give your patients the help they need to manage their conditions. Here are the top telemedicine use cases for chiropractors. 

Read More: How to Utilize Telemedicine Services at Your Practice

1. Evaluation and Diagnosis 

If you have a patient that is experiencing symptoms from an unknown condition, this is one situation where you would have a video conference with them and inquire more about their condition. 

You can ask the same questions that you would ask if you were having an in-person meeting in order to figure out what is causing them pain. From there, you can assess their symptoms and consider the best course of action for their treatment plan. 

2. Follow-Up Consultations to Monitor Patients’ Progress

Your most loyal patients have probably been frequenting your practice for years now and you’re well-versed on their condition and what they need from you. With telemedicine, you can have follow-up consultations with them to see how their treatment plan is coming along. 

These virtual consultations can help gold your patients accountable and make sure they are staying on track with their treatment when they cannot go into your practice. 

3. Advice for At-Home Chronic Pain Management 

When a patient is experiencing chronic pain, their main priority is to find relief, and quickly so they can return to their daily lives without pain hindering them. Telemedicine is a quick way for patients to receive your professional advice about how to improve their condition at home. 

They can practice movements, certain sleeping positions, better posture, and exercises that will help with pain management. 

Conditions That Can Be Helped With Telemedicine

Although patients may not be able to receive a spinal adjustment without coming to your office, if they have a musculoskeletal disorder or other conditions that cause chronic pain, you can provide them with at-home remedies or exercises that offer them relief. 

If someone has chronic neck pain, you can discuss some stretches or exercises that they can perform at home or ones that they have done in your office that have worked in managing their pain. Some common conditions that you can help with through the use of telemedicine are: 

• Back or neck pain
• Migraines
• Sports injuries
• MS
• Joint pain
• Herniated disk
• Posture
• Vertigo

The Pros of Telemedicine For Your Practice  

Whether you are extremely familiar with the use of telemedicine or not, using it at your practice can be beneficial. Some of the most important benefits it can have for your business are: 

• You’ll see a decrease in missed appointments. 
• You’ll see an increase in staff productivity.
• You can monitor your patient’s treatment completion. 
• Your practice will maximize revenue because you can have virtual visits with more patients. 
• You can give care to patients in remote locations that generally don’t have access to healthcare specialists in their area. 

Why Your Practice Needs Telemedicine Services

Utilizing telemedicine services isn’t just helpful for your practice to continue to see patients, it offers some pros for your patients as well. Some of the positives for your patients are: 

• Patients do not have to travel to your office for their appointment. 
• Scheduling for virtual visits meets the needs of your patients. 
• Patients are more comfortable at home. 
• Your patients won’t be exposed to anyone who could potentially have COVID-19

Changing Your Approach to Chiropractic Care During COVID-19 

Making adjustments to be able to remotely service your patients is not a problem that you see every day. But telemedicine can offer a simple solution to still help your patients when they need your medical expertise the most. 

Telemedicine is a supplement to helping your patients heal or manage their chronic condition from their home, but when life begins to normalize again, it’s important that you’re prepared for what comes next. Read our ebook to find out how to navigate your practice management strategy after COVID-19. 

Do you want to get started with telemedicine? 

Let us help you meet all your patients’ needs by getting started with your first month of telemedicine for free. Give us a call at 800.792.8384 or click here to get started with telemedicine.