Telemedicine Replaces Office Visits
According to a Health Affairs article, Kaiser Permanente found that 84 percent of the time required to seek care in a physician's office was unrelated to patient care. To obtain a 16.4 minute face-to-face visit with a doctor:
- Patients had to spend 50 minute (round trip) traveling to the physician's office.
- Waiting/checking in took 36.4 minutes.
In Hawaii, access to a doctor by phone or email actually substituted for in-office visits – which were down 26.2 percent.
More evidence that in conventional medicine, we are rationing by time.
You have to ration health care somehow, Joe. If people are not going to pay for care with money, they most likely will pay with their time.