Senior patients have, by and large, embraced telehealth. Surveys have found that over 60% of Medicare eligible seniors enthusiastically took to telehealth during the pandemic, and that senior usage of telehealth services increased by 300% over the course of the pandemic. Telehealth has, in many ways, already gotten senior patients more engaged in their healthcare; 28% use wearables to monitor their health 43% used devices that helped them maintain proper social distance.

Other research shows that adoption of these new services has not been universal among senior patients; only 39% of baby boomers have ever used telehealth and only 22% have seen a provider over video. An overwhelming 71% of boomers still prefer going to the doctor’s office in all circumstances, compared to 55% of Gen X in second place.

As a modern provider, your practice should be looking to increase and enhance the number of telehealth visits you receive. Being able to see patients on a more regular basis will allow you to form stronger bonds and relationships that will keep them coming back, leading to higher revenue generation and better patient health outcomes. If some seniors can respond enthusiastically to digital healthcare then you should take that as a sign that the rest only need a little help to be just as engaged and more involved in maintaining their health.

Keep reading for 3 strategies that will help you use telehealth to engage senior patients.

Patience

The first thing to know about seniors is that they take longer than most to learn new technologies. Though today’s seniors will be better at this than those from a decade or two ago, they still may need some time before they feel fully comfortable getting the most out of their computers, tablets, or smartphones. Not to mention all of the applications they will have to use; many of these, including secure communication tools, are not very intuitive to learn as they are developed with the understanding that most users will already be familiar with similar applications.

These issues don’t just affect patients, however. They waste time on the provider’s side and losing time means losing revenue. For this reason alone, it is better to be patient at the start. Give your patients the help and guidance they need learning the new tech at the start and it will benefit both parties in the long run. The place to start is through video tutorials. These can be available on your website or sent to patients via text or email so they can go through the process with a video guide nearby. For patients that are already at the office and are considering telehealth for future visits, do dry runs to walk them through the process.

Remember, a more productive telehealth visit is better for both parties.

Learn More: The Broadband Problem Bottlenecking Telehealth

Options
The COVID-19 pandemic was the catalyst towards the increased digitization of healthcare, with every industry being forced to adapt in some way to continue operating and offering customer’s convenience with contactless methods of doing business. As the pandemic continues to fade, however, it is only natural that some patients will prefer to return to their pre-pandemic habits.

What this means for healthcare practices is that they should continue offering telehealth services only to patients when appropriate or needed. Though many older patients will prefer returning to the doctor’s office, there will still be many that want to continue telehealth. For patients that want to continue seeing their providers from home or the office or wherever they take their telehealth visits, practices must continue doing so.

By giving patients the option to pick the type of visit they are most comfortable with, you will be providing a higher quality of patient experience.

Frequent Communication
Healthcare is not always a process. For most patients, healthcare is just a single visit to the doctor that they schedule and attend, and that is where it ends. Considering this, you will generally not have many opportunities to introduce your patients to telehealth.

Your practice can boost telehealth adoption among patients by introducing them to the possibilities. With patients not being present at the practice at all times, the best way to pursue this is to invest in a HIPAA-compliant healthcare communication platform. This will allow you to engage patients more regularly and directly, giving you more chances to introduce them to telehealth and show them what it can accomplish.

Such a platform will easily allow you to send secure communications and make video calls for telehealth visits. All intake forms can also be digitized to make the process smoother for patients. With automatic meeting transcription, you can also keep a reliable record of telehealth sessions for easy reference and better patient care. Such a platform will easily allow you to send secure communications and make video calls for telehealth visits.