Keith A. Reynolds

As the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic continues to rage, more and more practices have turned to telehealth to continue caring for patients.

Mike Tankersley, MD, MBA, of the University of Tennessee, gave some tips of how to prepare for a telehealth visit to cut down on confusion and stress for the patient and your staff as part of the session “Expanding Your Practice: Clinical, Administrative and Reimbursement Strategies for Success,” on Feb. 26 as part of the digital American Academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) Annual Meeting.

The ideal patient for a telehealth visit is returning patient, particularly for a follow up visit. For this patient, the physician should discuss with that patient at the end of their visit whether the follow up or next visit should be in-person or held using telehealth. Tankersley says he then lets the front office staff know and the next visit is booked as taking place over telehealth.

When it comes to using telehealth with a new patient, Tankersley notes that it’s best used when dealing with patients who are distant from the practice or if a patient would normally have to cancel their appointment due to unforeseen circumstances such as the severe weather that affected much of the country at the end of February.

“I'm in the city of Memphis, but if I want to set up a satellite clinic in Jackson, Tenn., an hour and 15 minutes away, I don't have to rent out space into a brick-and-mortar space,” he said. “I basically can set up a virtual satellite clinic and see patients who were there that don't have to drive the hour and 15 minutes to my office in Memphis.”

In preparation for upcoming telehealth visits, Tankersley says that every Friday at his practice they look over the next week’s schedule and send out templated emails to patients scheduled for telehealth visits which contain the time of the appointment and a link. He recommends the first or last appointment of the day for solo physicians.

Tankersly also has his staff collect any payment for the appointment beforehand. With patients he has already seen, he has them collect payment at the time they schedule the telehealth appointment, with new patients he has them call the patient the morning of the appointment to collect payment.

Another tip Tankersley gave was to create a mechanism so that the appointment starts on time in order to keep patients from being left staring at a computer screen waiting.

“Whether you set a timer, you got somebody in your office that's designated to kind of remind you, hey, Dr. Tankersley, your telemedicine’s in five minutes; just have some mechanism to remind yourself that that your telemedicine is live because the patient's not going to be in your clinic, letting everybody know that they’re there,” he said.

This article was originally posted on Medical Economics®.

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Mike Tankersley, MD, MBA, discusses workflow tips that can help practices in their use of telehealth visits.

AAAAI Annual Meeting: What to do before a telehealth appointment

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) for the single-dose COVID-19 vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.

According to a news release from the agency, the EUA allows the vaccine to be administered to patients over the age of 18.

“The authorization of this vaccine expands the availability of vaccines, the best medical prevention method for COVID-19, to help us in the fight against this pandemic, which has claimed over half a million lives in the United States,” Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD, says in the release. “The FDA, through our open and transparent scientific review process, has now authorized three COVID-19 vaccines with the urgency called for during this pandemic, using the agency’s rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality needed to support emergency use authorization.”

 the FDA released documents ahead of a Feb. 26 meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee detailing the vaccine’s effectiveness against the disease. They said that it was shown to be 66.9 percent effective against moderate to severe or critical COVID-19 and is 76.7 percent effective in preventing severe or critical instances of the disease.

The documents note that the vaccine has been highly effective in the prevention of severe or critical COVID-19 caused by emerging strains of the disease with 73.1 percent efficacy in South Africa. This is a 7 percent increase in efficacy against the South African strain of the disease from what the company believed 

“After a thorough analysis of the data, the FDA’s scientists and physicians have determined that the vaccine meets the FDA’s expectations for safety and effectiveness appropriate for the authorization of a vaccine for emergency use,” Peter Marks, MD, PhD, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, says in the release. “With (Saturday’s) authorization, we are adding another vaccine in our medical toolbox to fight this virus. At the same time, the American people can be assured of the FDA’s unwavering commitment to public health through our comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of the data submitted for vaccines to prevent COVID-19.”

The single-dose vaccine is the third granted emergency use authorization in an effort to end the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Keith A. Reynolds

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AAAAI Annual Meeting: What to do before a telehealth appointment

FDA grants Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine EUA