The conventional wisdom in dentistry has been that we have to physically see the patient. But during this crisis, virtually all practices are only seeing emergencies. And what we’re finding is that a significant percentage of dental emergency patients can be treated with teledentistry.
In this video, dental industry speaker and author Fred Joyal talks with Patient Prism CEO Amol Nirgudkar about PatientPopTelehealth, a HIPAA-compliant teledentistry service designed to help dentists navigate the coronavirus crisis.
Fred also wrote the article below.
Let me stress this first. It is your civic duty as well as your professional one to see emergency patients during this crisis. I’ll give you three key reasons why:
The ER is not where you want your own patients to be going. You have sterilization procedures to protect yourself, but now you have the ability to do teledentistry, triage those patients and be compensated for it.
There are a number of options out there for teledentistry, and the one I’ve found with the most comprehensive solution is offered by PatientPop. It is a cloud-based system that works directly with your PMS, streamlining the process.
We now have teledentistry codes, D9995 and D9996. You can charge between $75 and $150 for a consultation that may only take five or ten minutes. And then only bring in the patients into the office that need immediate treatment. You can also determine during the telehealth call if the patient is a COVID-19 risk to the practice, and take extra precautions.
You can use your patient communication software such as RevenueWell or PatientPop’s own system to notify all your patients that you are available for emergencies and can do teledentistry. This is powerful. Your patients will feel cared for, and you can keep them out of the emergency room, which is not where they would want to go now anyway.
Treating emergencies during this crisis is also a chance to attract new patients. At this time, 1-800-DENTIST is fielding tens of thousands of emergency calls a day, and have created a temporary membership that is emergencies only. These are people who don’t have a dentist. Take care of them, and turn them into long term patients. For more information about 1-800-DENTIST’s emergency program, go to www.Futuredontics.com.
PatientPop’s program is extremely affordable, and can pay for itself with just a few patient calls. It is also very easy to learn and install. You can be up and running in half an hour. I encourage you to take a demo of PatientPop Telehealth, for the sake of your revenue, your patients, and the medical industry that is so overwhelmed right now.
Full disclosure, I am an advisor to PatientPop. But I only advise companies with services or products that I think bring real value to my friends in the dental industry. I also am an advisor for PatientPrism for the same reason. And I no longer have any financial interest in 1-800-DENTIST.
Thank you for all you do in health care. You can make a huge difference on the impact of this crisis.