The most magical factor of telemedicine is the way it streamlines the referral and coordination process between attending physicians and consulting physicians. 

Due to the working methodology of our healthcare system, consulting physicians do not get the patients directly. 

Primary care or family physicians first check the patients and if needed, they refer patients to consulting physicians who belong to the secondary care system. 

The referral process and coordination between referring physicians and consulting physicians should be streamlined and efficient. 

However, there are vulnerabilities in how referring and consulting physicians engage in the referral-consultation process. 

The major challenges are how referrals are first initiated and how referring and consulting physicians exchange the information of patients and care plans. 

The following are the top ways telemedicine for consulting physicians solution helps them by easing the entire referral-consulting process. 

4 ways telemedicine helps the consulting physicians

The only reason a telemedicine app or platform can help consulting physicians is its easy-to-use online referral system or feature. 

Let’s discuss the telemedicine referral system while discussing its benefits for consulting physicians. 

1. Semi-automated and error-free referral request

As discussed, the family physicians or primary care physicians refer a patient to a consulting physician of a particular medical specialty to provide more specialized care to the patient. 

But to refer the patient, the referring physician needs to prepare and send the referral letter. 

And the referral letter should include, 

• Patient’s personal information 
• Date of referral 
• Purpose of referral 
• Relevant clinical information (e.g. current medications, allergies, health history, physical examination) and social information (e.g. language barriers, gender identity)
• Level of urgency 
• Expectations about the consultation outcome
• Copies or summaries of pertinent laboratory investigations, imaging and other reports

If the referral physician sends insufficient or wrong clinical information, the patient outcome gets affected dramatically. 

It also wastes the time of consulting physicians. 

So, the telemedicine platform eliminates all possibilities of errors by adding many details by itself. 

Additionally, it enables referring physicians to attach the clinical information of the patients very easily as it stores all medical data of the patients under individual patient profiles. 

Thus, when the consulting physicians receive the referral letter, it has sufficient information and zero error. 

This way, telemedicine helps to achieve higher efficiency in the first step of the referral-consulting process. 

You should also read: Telemedicine for hospitals solution 

2. Easy and fast response on referral request 

Once the consulting physician receives the referral request, he must respond as soon as possible. 

He can always either accept or deny the referral request. 

But there is a tedious process after every acceptance or denial of referral request. 

If he does not respond on time, our healthcare system which has already been struggling with long wait times ends up struggling more. 

If a consulting physician denies the referral, he should reply with appropriate reasons and other alternatives. 

And if he accepts the referral, he should reply with an appointment date and time to both the referring physician and the patient. 

Here, he does not have to notify the patient and referring physician manually. The telemedicine platform sends them notifications automatically. 

In fact, the consulting physician can manage all referral requests from the telemedicine app itself. 

Not only this, but all upcoming appointments with the referring physicians and patients can also be managed easily from the app itself. 

3. One-click, easy and secure video call with patients 

The consulting physicians using a telemedicine solution can easily invite patients and have a secure video consultation with them. 

While having a video consultation with patients, the consulting physicians have access to clinical data as well as the medical note of the referring physician. 

If needed, the consulting physicians can invite referring physicians and patients’ caretakers in the same video consultation. 

Once he diagnoses the patient, the next step is to inform the referring physician with a written report. 

4. Report to referring physician after seeing the patient 

The report should include the following details. 

• Name of patient 
• Primary care physician of patient 
• The date of consultation 
• The purpose of referral 
• Patient’s information considered by consulting physicians 
• Diagnostic conclusions
• Prescribed medication 
• Ordered diagnostics
• Medical advice to the patient 

Preparing this report is time-consuming and tedious. So with a pre-filled data and report template, the consulting physician can easily and rapidly prepare the report and send it to the referring physician from the app itself. 

Lastly, when the consultation is completed and patient care is transferred back to the referring physicians, both patients and referring physicians get notified. 

So, this way, a telemedicine solution streamlines the entire communication and coordination process between the referring and consulting physician while saving time and assuring quality care to patients. 

Check out the telemedicine solution our Canadian developers have developed for Canada  

Canada has a very unique healthcare system with different geographical, clinical and compliance-related challenges. 

Thus, not all telemedicine solutions work in Canada.

It requires a dedicated skillset and an on-ground understanding of Canadian healthcare to develop telemedicine for Canadian healthcare providers and patients. 

Our healthcare developers who have developed the white-label telemedicine solution are Canadians and understand the Canadian healthcare system. 

As a result, we achieved great success with it by helping Canadian healthcare providers solve the Canada-specific challenges. 

It is equipped with all features including online referral to optimize the entire clinical cycle. 

Here sharing a few screenshots of it. You can get this ready-to-use telemedicine solution or ask us to develop a clone or custom telemedicine solution. 

On the concluding note, we would like to share our most recent case study on telemedicine app development.