St. Joseph’s Health Physicians Perform More Telemedicine Visits than Ever Before

Syracuse, NY (June 8, 2020) - St. Joseph’s Health is pleased to announce that its physicians are performing 200 to 300 telemedicine visits per day. Those visits run the gamut of primary care, Cardiology, ENT, and surgical appointments.

Telemedicine is the treatment of patients over the phone or via a video communication such as zoom or Skype. It allows patients to stay home during the COVID-19 pandemic, and lessens their anxiety about seeing their doctor.

“Being able to do a face-to-face with video has been really important as it allays some fears to speak to the patients that we haven’t been able to,” Dr. Austin Tsai said. “It allows us to keep the patients who are at higher risk at home and still give them care they need," Tsai said.

Dr. Tsai and dozens of other St. Joseph’s physicians are currently seeing the majority of their patients through virtual visits. While it’s expected that the frequency of regular visits will pick back up, virtual visits may be a long-term option.

“I think telehealth will be here to stay in some form. I think the volume will probably decrease. We’re starting to realize oftentimes we're having them come back in a month just to check how they’re doing with certain things - like a medication change," Tsai said. "We can do that virtually and be able to keep them out of the office, while still maintaining some of their regular routines.”

The cost of virtual visits are covered by private insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. Blue Cross Blue Shield recently released a report that said that their members used telemedicine visits 2.6 million times in the first four months of this year. That’s up from 290,000 for the entire 2019 year. They attribute the increase to the pandemic.