Western Bay of Plenty PHO Advice to General Practices: eConsultations Following recent advice from the RNZCG, we provide the following information to assist our General Practice network adjust to a virtual reality.
How to become more virtual and how we can help Quick tips: 1. If you haven’t turned on messaging in your patient portals, then please do. This should help reduce the load on your telephone system immediately. 2. If your phone system is voice-over IP (VoIP) i.e. runs over the internet then you should have no problem with the number of phone lines you have. 3. If you want to use video to see patients then via patient portals is the preferred way. Otherwise zoom and doxy.me are also okay. For privacy and security reasons, please don’t use social media for video consults unless there is no other option. 4. We have documents and resources available to help practices with any of these methods. 5. Co-payments stay the same for telephone and video consults.
The detail: • Clinicians should offer appointments in the first instance through messaging in the patient portals, telephone or by video contact to manage patients remotely where possible. Practices will each need to develop their own plan for contacting patients starting with those that have appointments over the next few days. •
If your practice does not have a VoIP phone system then you may need to use mobile phones (with Caller ID turned off) or upgrade the number of phone lines you have into your practice phone system.
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If you do not have a patient portal for your practice, then you can use zoom or doxy.me for video consultations. Please avoid using social media.
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PHO networks are preparing to support general practices to meet this challenge and many practices are already offering GP triage and virtual consultations. We are negotiating nationally for a practice package to offset the costs virtual consultation set-up.
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There is no expectation that you will provide telehealth consultations at zero fee. Normal copayments will still apply. We acknowledge that it is more difficult to collect a co-payment and PHOs are working together nationally to identify how funding will be passed to practices to reimburse for the reductions in co-payments that may arise as a result of the shift to more virtual consultations.
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Key messages to the public are that while general practice teams are working hard to manage the evolving COVID-19 situation, they may notice changes in the way they are asked to access front-line services. This means more portal messaging, telephone and video-based consultations and being seen in different spaces where necessary. If messaging via patient portals is not yet enabled, then it needs to be turned on.
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We are working hard to get a dedicated patient-facing COVID-19 advice section running on our website and will keep you informed about progress on that. This section on the website will answer some general enquires about the PHO and general practice services during this time. ENDS