Telemedicine is relatively new in Romania, and patients have mixed opinions about the usefulness of these services. For or against telemedicine? We thought we would clarify some of the aspects for which we receive the most questions or comments. Here are answers to the most frequently asked questions by patients.
In 2020 alone, when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, almost 1 billion online medical consultations took place worldwide, according to Forrester Research. It seems simple to be one click away from the doctor you want to talk to, whether it is a doctor in your city, a doctor from a large university medical center, or a Romanian doctor established abroad. You have the opportunity to talk to a doctor for 20 minutes, you can see him, he can see you, he can see your tests. But online consultations do not always seem very easy to understand, and as a result, we have selected some ambiguities and questions that constantly appear in the messages that Digital-Clinics receives.
Hundreds of millions of online consultation users have a different opinion. There are consultations that can be done online, there are others that cannot be done online. Telemedicine does not replace traditional medicine but complements it. How many times have we, each of us, been to a doctor who did not give us a direct diagnosis but recommended tests to come back with; how many times have we not wanted to have a second doctor's opinion about our diagnosis or treatment; how many times have we not wanted to talk to a doctor from another city but the costs and time associated with travel and accommodation stopped us; how many times have we not wanted to talk to a doctor at 6:00 in the morning or at 10:00 in the evening without having access to one unless we went to the hospital or called the ambulance even if our symptoms did not indicate anything serious? For all these situations, telemedicine can help you.
If diagnoses and effective treatments could not be made online, telemedicine would not exist. It is true that a diagnosis cannot be made for every condition; sometimes the patient is told what tests to take and then goes to a medical office for a face-to-face consultation with the doctor. But the same thing happens at a traditional medical office: sometimes we just talk to the doctor and he recommends that we come back with a set of tests.
If a doctor is superficial, that doctor's consultations will be superficial, whether they take place in a regular clinic or in an online one. At Digital Clinics we are very attentive to the doctors registered in the clinic, their experience and expertise and we strive to avoid such situations.
It's pretty much the same as going to a regular doctor's office. You tell the doctor what symptoms your child has, the doctor asks you other questions about the child's symptoms, the medical history, and then establishes the steps you need to take next. Or they may directly give you a diagnosis and a prescription, depending on the complexity of the condition.
We can't make an appointment for you. You will have to create an account here (name, surname, email, phone number, and a password known only to you). Then you choose the doctor you want to make an appointment with, the date and time, check the details, and pay. You will receive an email confirming your payment and confirming the consultation. 10 minutes before the start of the consultation, you log in to your account, upload your previous tests (if you have any) and at the start of the consultation, press the Start Consultation button. At that moment, via the video platform, the doctor will see you and you will see the doctor.
In order to meet your concerns, we can answer several questions from the same category that have been addressed to us. But you must keep in mind that the answers will be of a general nature, and for diagnosis and treatment you must schedule an online or offline medical consultation.
As a result, you can send us your questions to the email address contact@digital-clinics.com or send us a message on our Facebook page and we will respond to you taking into account all privacy and GDPR rules.
