Benefits of Telehealth for Behavioral Health
Data shows that virtual treatment for mental health conditions is at least as effective – and in some cases, more than – in-person treatment. Today’s next-generation telemedicine platforms help providers better serve patients with behavioral health issues by offering a convenient means for patients to obtain direct mental health counseling services on a timely and consistent basis. Telemedicine can provide access to mental health professionals that would otherwise not have been possible, and make more efficient use of mental health provider resources, while still remaining compliant with patient privacy issues related to mental health services delivery. For providers and patients alike, in addition to the positive health effects, there are numerous benefits to using telemedicine for mental health conditions:
Improved Patient Care
Convenience
Virtual visits make mental health services more convenient for patients. With telehealth, a patient seeking behavioral health support can get treatment without leaving home – avoiding the perceived social stigma. Greater convenience also leads to more routine treatment and better outcomes.
Increased Access
For patients who live in remote areas or congested urban areas, who are housebound, who have trouble lining up childcare, or just have too much going on in their lives to make room for regular therapy sessions, telemedicine offers an easier connection to mental healthcare.
Continuity of Care
With the ease of scheduling and attending appointments from home, more routine appointments can be scheduled as needed with preferred caregivers. Fewer missed appointments mean that patients are more likely to achieve the goals of their treatment program through greater adherence to evidence-based treatment.
Enhanced Productivity
Operational Efficiencies
The use of virtual visits can allow a provider organization to leverage various levels of clinicians to engage the patient to address different needs. The convenience of an online appointment can allow a patient to secure both therapy and medication management from the convenience of their home.
Clinic Throughput
Virtual visits, whether scheduled for the patient or by themselves, can eliminate the inconvenience of travel to see a provider, missed appointments and/or patients simply not seeking care. In this way, online visits can ensure clinicians have highly productive days.
Support Clients Between Scheduled Visits
Just like other areas of medicine, patients with mental health disorders can have acute episodes needing timely intervention. Telemedicine can enhance supportive care by providing greater access to the appropriate clinicians.
Extend Service Reach
Providers who offer services virtually can expand their reach to new clients beyond their local area, or secure specialty services to better meet a patient’s needs.
Timely Assessment
When patients visit the ED with a mental health complaint, timely evaluation is important. With prompt assessment, patient management burdens are reduced, and treatment decisions can be made more rapidly.
The PrimaHealth Behavioral Health Telemedicine Solution
PrimaHealth’s Telehealth Virtual Care platform offers mental health professionals a complete virtual clinic to easily launch online services. Our industry-leading digital exam room provides all the tools to engage patients in one click, and document the encounter. With advanced capabilities such as multi-party visits, high-resolution screen sharing, and file transfer, the PrimaHealth Telehealth software platform allows healthcare providers to deliver convenient and timely care to their patients with mental health conditions wherever and whenever they need it – just as if they were in the clinic exam room.
Key features of the PrimaHealth Telehealth platform for behavioral health include:
Powerful rules engine for intelligent workflow, with customized rules that can control patient registration and ensure patients are routed to the appropriate provider (e.g. psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker) who is licensed to comply with treatment needs and meet jurisdiction requirements.
Enterprise-level dynamic scheduling system, enabling appointment scheduling by providers, administrative staff, or directly by patients themselves; true on-demand encounters can be facilitated via a unified patient queue vs. the antiquated, one-dimensional booking-based approach used by others.
High-definition video for virtual digital exams that can support multi-participant and/or clinician-to-clinician sessions, enabling timely care and decision-making. This high-quality video experience can also improve intimacy with the patient to enhance the clinical encounter.
Market-leading compliance adherence and security layers including HIPAA, HITECH , GDPR and COPPA-compliant software. Combined with complete logging of all transactions, with data available for extract to meet audit requirements.
Robust set of API and SDK libraries to provide integration with third-party systems or development of complementary applications.
Virtual visits can be an ideal complement to traditional care or can provide access to care for many patients currently not treated. PrimaHealth’s Telehealth platform can support a variety of service lines across a multi-specialty care group, and bring a new level of convenience to patients, increasing the likelihood of treatment plan success.
