The world is evolving and so are we. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) issued guidance encouraging people rigidly to adopt social distancing. While most cities have been under quarantine for weeks, the demand for virtual clinical services such as telehealth has increased. Though telehealth services have been around for many years in the United States, the services were mostly practiced by people living in remote areas even before the pandemic hit the world because they have limited access to medical infirmaries or a long wait in the clinic. While for some people, transportation was a challenge.

Right now, it is a tipping point for all physicians practices who are below capacity to come forward as telehealth plays an essential role in keeping the patients in check 24/7 via video or phone calls.

Telehealth services demand increasing day by day because consulting a healthcare practitioner virtually is certainly suitable for minimizing the virus’s transmission. People can consult doctors virtually in the comfort of their homes, and there are numerous apps where they can get in touch with a team of specialists without waiting in a long queue. Only in case of emergency, they have to rush to the hospital.

Telehealth has also benefited disabled people. Now they can get treatment via medical streaming devices without traveling to the hospitals. Online healthcare apps for telehealth services have seen a dramatic surge in their app downloads by the second quarter of 2020 alone. In comparison, they were struggling till last year.

The digital health platform allows the health care practitioner to provide information to the patients via audio, video-conferencing, text-messages, which are accessible through smartphones, tablets, or laptops. They also prescribe medicines digitally. Even some of them offer home delivery services for treatments.

As technology is rapidly growing, Artificial Intelligence diagnosis and virtual medical assistance — streaming devices help diagnose the patient symptoms. 

Through remote monitoring devices, it allows the doctors or nurses to monitor patient health conditions recovering from illnesses in real-time virtually. The device can collect health data — heart rate, oxygen level, blood pressure. The device also sends warning signals to the patient and nurse or family when something is going wrong. 

Telehealth services, apart from convenience, are also cheaper in cost. According to a study the average price of a virtual doctor visit is around $79, while visiting the clinic can cost about $146.

A recent survey of U.S. Specialists said that 79% of telehealth services use had increased this year, and many of those surveyed have said that they would continue to avail the service of virtual care in the future. Therefore it leads to expanded access and high demand for telehealth services. Henceforth there will be changes in the regulations and prices. While many telehealth providers and patients are pleasantly delighted with the virtual transition, the question leads to — would telehealth increase healthcare price?

The growth of telehealth will increase more in the near future, even after the pandemic ends. Telehealth is transforming the healthcare industry. Therefore, there will be a heavy surge in demand for practitioners, especially specialists. The price of health care may increase.

Though the treatment cost is now cheaper, many telehealth services offer cost-saving programs also. The doctors can attend to more patients and save on additional employment costs at their clinic. As well they also save on electricity and transportation.  

The growing cost of healthcare in the U.S. is because they keep adding new and better Artificial Intelligence technologies for virtual medical assistance to address the symptoms more accurately in less time, improving the virtual training of intern physicians. Growing more immediate care units, and keeping adding other more convenient options.

The dynamic change in healthcare costs also depends on how the health insurance company performs in the market and the services they provide to people.

At SoftGrid Computers, our expert developers possess years of experience and immense technical proficiency to build a custom Telehealth solution to minimize the cognitive load from an individual or healthcare organization. Our team of proficient Healthcare Professionals can any day assist you in designing customized hospital management software integrated with Telemedicine services to gain an edge over your competitors.