When technology becomes the subject of late night humor or lampooned in national satirical publications like The Onion, it’s a sure sign it’s breaking into the mainstream of pop culture. The Onion has come out with its own talking heads roundup of telehealth skewering the haters. The article is pegged to a real Deloitte report published last month predicting that 75 million would use telehealth to communicate with their physician by the end of the year.
It takes some of the things designed to attract people to connected health such as convenience, access, discretion and turns them on their head. Although it’s not envisioned as a way to replace in-person visits, there’s some angst about that anyway. A survey published by the National Business Group on Health, highlighted in Mobihealthnews, revealed that 48 percent of the 136 employers surveyed said they plan to make telehealth services available to employees in states where it’s legal in the next year. An increasing number of employers are making this move to reduce overhead costs.
Although video conferencing accounts for about one tenth of telehealth “evisits” it also includes emailing physicians, sending relevant images, particularly to dermatologists to evaluate rashes, or texting. Even the e-prescribing component came in for some snarkiness.
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Photo credit: The Onion
