Sickness does not make appointments, unfortunately. It arrives like an uninvited guest, who you cannot wait to get rid of. You wake up one morning and find out you are sick. But once you are sick, the next daunting task is to get it checked, and the mere thought of visiting the doctor forces the brain to mislead you into believing that you are fine, the symptoms are not that bad, and you can outlive that pain. But this fooling yourself is not a healthy habit and can sometimes lead to complications that could have been easily avoided had professional help been sought.
What is it about visiting the doctor that makes you avoid the visit at all costs? Well, it’s a combination of various factors. It is the long commute to the clinic, it is the long waiting time when you reach there, it is the congested waiting rooms, it is the expensive health insurance, and when you combine these factors, in-person physicians seem very inaccessible. But fortunately, technology has provided us with a solution to this problem too, as now you can meet with a doctor online, from the comfort of your home or on your mobile phone.
Online Doctor Consultation can be considered an entrepreneurial approach towards telemedicine, and a “Dynamic” form of telehealth. Online consultation is dynamic because it does not require a fixed ‘center’, and can be accessed from anywhere where you have access to a device compatible with the internet. So how can you select the best online doctor for your needs?
Here are six things you need to know to find the best doctor:
The Field The Doctor Specializes In
The first consideration when selecting a doctor online should be their specialty. You need to make sure that the doctor you are consulting has specialized in the part of medicine where your sickness falls. The rationale behind this is that the doctor is not physically present with you and has to prescribe medicine based on what you tell them without having access to your physical body, thus only someone specialized in the required field will be able to give a more accurate diagnosis.
How Experienced They Are
You need to know how experienced the doctor you’re considering is. Of course, the skill and experience of the doctor in their field are important and it goes without saying, but in the online consultation, communicating with the patient effectively is equally important to give the right diagnosis. There are many online doctor companies that show the experience of the doctors to their customers, but even if they do not, you should feel free to ask them.
How Qualified The Doctor Is
There are many online platforms that provide complete details of the doctors including their degrees and qualifications and these are the platforms that you should be using. It is very important that the doctor who is diagnosing your problem should have the necessary skills and knowledge to give out the right diagnosis.
How Easy It Is To Book An Appointment
The fourth consideration while choosing an online doctor consultation should be the ease of starting an online consultation. Online doctor consultation is often used in a situation where urgent medical help is required. The focus is on urgent, not emergency – as in an emergency you should always seek out in-person medical help as soon as possible. Thus you should choose a platform that does not take a lot of time for you to get registered and has an easy joining process so that you can meet a doctor online as soon as possible.
How Flexible The Doctor’s Hours Are
The fifth consideration when choosing an online doctor consultation should be flexible consulting hours of doctors. As mentioned previously, online doctor consultation is a tool used mostly when urgent medical help is needed, thus the ideal consultation would be one that does not have very rigid hours. The reason being that medical help can be required at any time of the day and you do not want an online doctor consultation that only lets you access the doctor during very limited hours of the day.
What Other Patients Think
The sixth consideration should be feedback from patients. This is very important as this gives you a firsthand experience of the previous patients who have used the service and will give you an honest idea about the skill, knowledge, effectiveness, and behavior of the doctor. Therefore you should choose a platform that provides honest, unbiased, and unfiltered feedback from the patients.
Conclusion
The advent and evolution of technology have changed the way people live across all fields, and the medical field is no exception. While there have been leaps of change and innovation in medical practice, the way it is delivered has also evolved. Online Doctor Consultation means that you can meet the doctor online from the comfort of your bed when you are not feeling well, and do not have to commute all the way to the doctor and wait when you reach there, and all that in a state which is already very uncomfortable for you.