The next episode of the Future Ear Radio podcast features two audiologists, D’Anne Rudden and Brian Urban. D’Anne is the owner of Longmont Hearing and Tinnitus Center, a private practice audiology clinic based in Longmont, Colorado. Brian is the president and co-founder of CounselEAR, a practice management solution specific to audiologists, which also provides a TeleHealth feature for audiologists to use to communicate with patients.
With everyone currently sheltering in place during the COVID-19 lockdown, we’re seeing a mass shift toward virtual services in lieu of physical services. Zoom’s CEO stated that the company went from servicing 10 million daily active users to 200 million in the span of 3 months. Healthcare is seeing similar shifts toward TeleHealth, aided by the fact that it has become possible to bill Medicare for telemedicine visits and HIPAA privacy rules have been eased.
HUGE CHANGE FOR TELEMEDICINE: 📌Medicare will allow telemedicine visits to be billed, and 📌HIPAA privacy rules now lifted against against telemedicine calls. Great news for seeing the doctor from home 🏠 everywhere! #COVID19 https://t.co/yZXFugSwKk
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) March 17, 2020
So, I thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with Brian and D’Anne about how they’re viewing the role that TeleHealth can play within the Audiology setting, both in the short term and in the long run. D’Anne offers great insight from the view of a private practice owner around what’s feasible and what’s not in a remote setting, and what aspects make her most excited about the future of this application within her practice. Brian’s perspective is equally as interesting, as CounselEAR has been offering TeleHealth services through its platform for more than two years, and is now seeing a surge in demand for this application.
While it’s completely unknown when life will return to a shred of normalcy, what is becoming clear is that a variety of trends that were already seeing steady adoption pre-pandemic, such as video conferencing, are being massively accelerated by COVID-19. This conversation cements in my mind that TeleHealth within the Audiology setting is undergoing its own type of acceleration in adoption. Ultimately, I view the ability for practices to offer a wide array of virtual services in tandem with their traditional face-to-face services, will be a win-win for both them and the patient. The more opportunity hearing care professionals can showcase their value (knowledge + expertise), the better.
-Thanks for Reading-
Dave
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