During the COVID19 pandemic, most patients got used to the idea of using telehealth to get in touch with their doctor while avoiding exposure to other patients who might be sick. While the threat of COVID has lessened, the popularity of televisits has remained steady. Televisits are a great adjunct to office care, but they can’t completely replace the need to come to the office. Choosing whether to schedule a televisit or an office visit is often an important first step in getting the care you need, when you need it.
Generally speaking, an office visit is considered the “ideal” visit type for most conditions. While any condition can be managed in the office, not every condition can be handled via a televisit. That doesn’t mean televisits don’t have their uses, but it does mean that, if you’re in doubt, it’s usually best to schedule an office visit to be examined. This will maximize the chances that all of your needs can be addressed in one visit, while minimizing the chance that you’ll need to make a separate trip for followup care.
That being said, televisits are a great option for getting an initial opinion from your doctor about the severity of the illness you’re having when a new problem pops up. When you first start to have symptoms of a cold, for instance, and you aren’t feeling up to getting out of the house, a televisit can be appropriate to get some advice from you doctor about how to manage your symptoms, or if additional testing is needed. If your symptoms improve with that advice, that’s great! You’ve saved yourself a trip to the office, and helped yourself recover more comfortably at home. If not, your doctor will usually recommend an in-person evaluation so you can get any additional testing or treatment that you need.
Televisits are also a wonderful option for discussing unexpected lab results, imaging findings, or checking in about chronic conditions. Telehealth is a great way for a doctor to spend additional time with you interpret lab results, explain the plan of care from a specialist, or advise you on how to make lifestyle changes necessary to reduce your risk of certain chronic diseases. With a televisit, you don’t need to worry about delays that come from checking vital signs, getting checked in, or filling out paperwork – you can simply log in at the time of your appointment and start a conversation. If your doctor wants to follow up on side effects of a medication or needs to discuss an abnormal lab result with you, a televisit may be a great option and more convenient than having to come to the office.
Of course, not every problem can be addressed in a televisit. Televisits aren’t great for issues that require a doctor’s examination. Problems like a painful shoulder, back, lingering cough, or earache aren’t great things to schedule a televisit for, since a doctor usually isn’t able to give you a definite diagnosis without examining you in detail. In these instances, an office visit is ideal for examining the painful area, listening to the lungs for signs of pneumonia, or looking in the ear to see if there’s an infection. When patients schedule televisits for these sorts of issues, it can be frustrating both for them and for the doctor. More often than not, if you schedule a televisit for problems like these, your doctor may advise some general tips to help you feel better, but will more likely request that you schedule another appointment in the office to follow up on the issue. Save time by booking an office visit from the get-go!
Televisits also aren’t great if you need labs or testing that can only be provided in the office. Simple tests like checking your blood sugar or getting a vaccination can’t be completed via a televisit, but they’re easy to accomplish as a part of an office visit. Some conditions, like asthma, also need special treatments that can be administered in the office when flares happen, like a steroid injection or a nebulizer, which can’ t be administered over a televisit. In these cases, it’s usually best to plan on physically coming to the office to get checked out.
Depending on the type of problem you have, you may also be able to get other treatments or procedures in the office that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to get by a televisit. Knee pain or a suspicious rash might require an injection in the knee or a biopsy of the skin to determine what’s going on, and scheduling a televisit rather than an in-office visit for these concerns might mean you need to come back to the office at another time to get the procedure done. For these types of issues, it’s usually better to schedule an office visit first, so that if a procedure is needed, it can be completed at the same time as the visit.
No matter what visit type you have for your followup care or sick care, seeing a doctor once a year in the office is the best way to make sure you stay up to date on your recommended preventative care. Measuring blood pressure, labwork, and administering vaccinations are some of the ways that an annual visit in the office helps to keep you healthy in the long run. While many conditions can be managed effectively with a televisit, coming to the office annually is the best way to be sure you’re taking the best possible care of your health.