anybody have experience with these companies or telemedicine for urgent care type consults overbthe phone or video. They pay 23/10 minute phone consult. Teladoc lets you work whenever you want and as little or as much as you like.
I saw online only a few reviews having to do with being called when you don’t want to be called.
I’m trying to decide if it’s a good side gig. Financially I can make more just doing one or two more shift.
Thanks in advance.
Not a frequent poster but I am writing here to not only answer your questions but also to spread awareness about what these telemedicine companies are about and the pitfalls of working under them.
I have worked with many: doctor on demand, Teladoc, Mdlive, k health, lemonaid, Amwell.
In order to give you a better overview of how these companies, I will break this down by how you will interact with a patient and how you will get paid.
1. Patient Interactions
usually most of these platforms are phone or video which is synchronous; you interact with the patient in real time. now, some companies are offering text/chat based interactions in real time. others do this ASYNCHRONOUS, where the patient leaves a message and you answer it when you get the message(usually with 24 hours of receipt)
doctor on demand,-video only ,synchronous
Teladoc, phone and video,synchronous
Mdlive,phone and video, synchronous
k health,text only ,sometimes asynchronous
lemonaid, text , sometimes phone ,sometimes asynchronous
Amwell.video only,synchronous
personally, the one i disliked the most is video. it ties me to the computer and I have to sitting there with white coat over my jammies and shorts to give the facade of being in the office. i also have to make sure i dont have anything in the background(no screaming kids, no barking dog or running around, no pot about to boil).
with all of the above there is risk to ones license with ALL of the above tech formats. much more so than a regular in person visit. all of the companies provide malpractice for you, however the litigious aspect of this telemedicine industry is unknown at present and with covid increasing the usage of it, it will only become more intense. patients are now relying on telemedicine for everything. i have had patients call when they clearly were septic or having chest pain. do i direct to the ER? Of course. are the patients about it? nope. does that affect patient satisfaction? yes. do the telemedicine companies care about patient satisfaction? yes.
however most patients call about the common cold and demand antibiotics. i had one patient demand antibiotics because he saw someone cough and he wanted augmenting 'just to head things off'.
so this pushes the doctor into a tough position ; scylla and charybdis are the companies' interests and the patient's interests. no body gives a hoot about you the physician.
2. how you get paid
this varies somewhat. usually it is anywhere from $9 to $23 per consult. if that seems paltry, it is. unfortunately, the only way to make this lucrative is get multiple state licenses(at least 6-10) AND make sure you keep your consults as short as possible. now there are two problems with the latter approach. one is the patients don't like to be rushed and with the pandemic, patients are treating telemedicine visits like primary care office visits. i had one guy call about his cold sore and it lasted for over 20 minutes. usually btw that is not even a 3 minute visit. then you have patients who chronic problems and want a 'second opinion' from you and they will talk forever. the other flip to the coin is again the telemedicine company itself. they also want you to see as many consults as you can, because the brings in more revenue for them, but they also want you to take more time with the patients, to improve patient satisfaction , and also to appease more insurance companies, who are now using telemed companies . again, as the doc, you are in the inferior position.
most will pay you on a 1099 as an independent contractor, k health only pays on a w2 as a salary which is 80K per year and you have give them scheduled 20 hours per week at least.
now that i have got that out of the way. the biggest danger with telemedicine is not the patient, at least not yet. the biggest one is the telemedicine company itself. the one i warn you to strongly stay away from is teladoc. this company is highly dysfunctional and unscrupulous. they have leadership which is also a revolving door and they have been reporting doctors to NPDB, the national practitioner data bank, of which I am now one. they are reporting anyone who is resigning from their company, under false pretenses. this company has singlehandedly managed to mess up my career. and btw, for those not familiar, the NPDB reports are permanent and are NEVER removed unless the reporting entity, chooses to do so, Teladoc in my case. another thing i disliked about Teladoc was they were also incredibly dishonest about the pay and reimbursement for licenses, where they promised to reimburse the cost of those but ending up backing out, leaving me with footing the bill, of over $5k. i have had to hire entire attorney and that has already cost me another $6k.
if you have further commments or questions, put them up here.
IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT/FELLOW/MEDICAL STUDENT, DON'T DO TELEMEDICINE. It will destroy your career. I am attending in a teaching institution and I don't want anyone to deal with these business who are out to screw doctors and doctors in training. i thought this would be a way to ease my student loan debt but it did the opposite and this is one career decision I will forever regret.
