COVID-19 may be a medical concern, but doctors and their offices are not immune to necessary changes when it comes to providing care.
The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC) announced that doctors have had to begin offering telehealth services rather than seeing their patients face-to-face, in order to provide safe diagnoses and treatment options. Doctors who have to conduct surgery, however, have had to delay treatment.
In an interview, AJMC spoke with Brian LaMoreaux, MD, of Horizon Therapeutics, about the challenges of treating individuals during this concerning time, as well as what health care professionals can and should do to deliver adequate care to patients.
LaMoreaux has been the medical director of Horizon Therapeutics, said that patients have been hesitant to come to receive care in person, so the office has done symptom screening and temperature checks before requesting that they come.
“I do a pretty comprehensive symptom screen before I even start talking about their rheumatological issues and medicine,” LaMoreaux told AJMC. “So, what we've seen is that you almost have to talk some of these patients into coming.”
LaMoreaux said that there are challenges associated with telehealth services, such as limited access to smartphones or insufficient data or WiFi when it comes to patients, meaning that some appointments must be carried out over the phone without video chat.
LaMoreaux said that even for medical professionals, there is a learning curve when it comes to providing care for patients with coronavirus in addition to patients who have tested negative for the virus.
“A lot of the COVID patients have either atypical or no symptoms, and so you can fully be positive and present with none of the typical symptoms of fever, cough, change in sense of smell, GI [gastrointestinal] symptoms,” LaMoreaux said. “Those can be absent in patients that are still positive.”
