02-19-2025 PTL - Flipbook - Page 11
A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Wednesday, February 19, 2025 11
tioners,” Kvedar says. “When we have
virtual visits, no-shows go way down.
The patients and I are on time, so we
are far more efficient. However, we have
to relearn a good bedside manner, how
to engage the patient. Medical school
doesn’t teach students how to interact with someone. When the patient is
engaged, more involved in his or her
care, they have better outcomes.”
Kvedar spends two and a half days a
week in patient care. The rest of the time,
he volunteers. At the American Telehealth
Association, he’s on the Board; at the
American Medical Association, he is cochair of the Digital Medicine Payment
Advisory Group, which works on “integrating digital medicine technologies
(telemedicine and remote patient monitoring) into clinical practice and solutions
to meet the needs of digital medicine
and telehealth.” He also teaches bedside
manner at the medical school.
We talked about the future of telehealth, and what comes next.
“About 80 percent of telehealth insurance claims are for behavioral health,”
Kvedar explains, “and even though telehealth is growing, we could be doing
much more in all the specialties. We are
underperforming because of the way
the government is handling telehealth
and Medicare. Instead of committing
to permit telehealth permanently, it is
only approved for short extensions. First,
though, the old regulations need to be
eliminated because they are now irrelevant. There are a few other requirements,
but once those are rectified, we can have
telehealth available forever.
“In some cases, practitioners don’t
integrate telehealth into their practices
because we are creatures of habit when
we examine patients. None of us want a
bad outcome, so, often, many of us feel
like we have to have the patient in front of
us, just in case we want to do a physical
examination.”
In closing, Kvedar wrapped it up,
saying, “Telehealth hasn’t reached its full
potential – but it will.”
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