Page 40 - Delaware Medical Journal - November/December 2020

TELEHEALTH, MASKS, REMOTE WORK:
Physicians Share Changes That May Be Here to Stay
Tina Irgang Leaderman
As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, physicians in Delaware and elsewhere were forced to make a great number of operational changes to keep staff and patients safe.
While it’s natural to focus on the ways our quality of life during the pandemic has declined, we asked Delaware physicians to talk about changes that have worked well and that may carry on into a post-COVID future.
TELEHEALTH VISITS
All the physicians we spoke to agreed that greater use of telehealth is likely to persist.
“Nothing replaces in-office visits,
but with the patients who are at risk, it’s clearly better to do telehealth, especially if it’s audio and video,” says Barry Bakst, DO, of Delaware Back Pain & Sports Rehabilitation Centers.
At Family Medicine at Greenhill, the pre-pandemic rate of telehealth visits was between 3% and 5%, says James Gill, MD. That rate spiked to more than 50% in the early months of the pandemic. It’s since leveled off some, but remains much higher than pre-COVID, he says. “We have been encouraging telemedicine for a long time. It’s more convenient — it takes less time for the patient as well as for
the provider. One thing that’s important is that all payers need to pay for it fully, but it looks like that’s what everybody’s leaning towards.”
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Del Med J | November/December 2020 | Vol. 92 | No. 6