While we fully understand that being board certified does not make you a good doctor, board certification is now the standard expected in the community. We market our company as having ONLY board certified doctors and nurse practitioners. This helps separate us out from the other telepsychiatry companies that don't really care about quality of care.
No. We check the National Provider Identification Database for every applicant.
You can see patients who live in any state in which you are actively licensed to practice.
It doesn't matter where you are physically sitting. It only matters where you are actively licensed and where the patient you are treating is domiciled.
For Child/Adolescent psychiatrists, we provide an electronic means for prescribing Schedule II medications. Most standard eRx systems provide a fax method of sending Schedule III, IV, and V orders.
You don't.
Not to patients you see through us. As a company policy, we do not allow any of our doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to any of our patients in any state irregardles of the state laws. We follow the Federal laws regarding this issue.
For those doctors contracted to work at a county facility or community mental health center or indigent clinic or hospital, there is a local staff person in the room with you (often a nurse, and if not a nurse, then a nurse is available upon request). Amazingly, quite quickly you become adept at using other people's hands and ears and nose to provide you with the information that you need. You are also expected to work with the patient's local primary care physician to coordinate a physical exam to address whatever issue you feel needs to be addressed in such a way and to make sure that the patient has a general physical on a regular basis as clinically appropriate.
At a county agency or community mental health clinic or hospital-based assignment, this has proven more difficult than we would like. We've worked hard to establish relationships with PCPs seeing these Medicaid, Medicare, and Indigent patients, but frequently there is no assigned single PCP. Patients often can't even tell you who their PCP is because the public clinics have rotating doctors, and every time a patient comes in he or she sees a different provider. You can attempt to get the name and phone number of the clinic and to call and speak with staff there to help coordinate whatever your concern is. We continue to work to improve this system.
Local entities have therapists in the building, and you are expected to make yourself available to them during your scheduled clinic time (between patients) to answer any questions they might have about your treatment and to collaborate on patient care.
We provide the teleconferencing software license(s), 24/7 professional IT tech support, EMR/EHR/PHR, corporate secure email, eRx, electronic lab review where available, training, scheduling, billing/collection, 1-800 phone and fax, Psych Certified Nursing support, and administrative support. We provide a 24/7/365 live medical office answering service with HIPAA trained English speaking/bilingual staff, and very high quality professional liability insurance.
We use electronic medical records software. The program varies depending on what site you are placed through your particular contract.
No. By way of explanation, Wi-Fi is "unidirectional." What that means is that it's like a two lane road under construction on one side. People have to stand out there with signs to direct traffic, and they stop traffic from going one direction in order to allow traffic to move from the other direction. Then they keep alternating back and forth. For the bandwidth needed for live audio/video, that system is not fast enough, and it tends to kick you off the connection frequently as the info "packages" go back and forth and collide. So you need a wired internet connection to your computer (Ethernet cable) where the traffic is bidirectional and the info packages can travel by each other at the same time without colliding.
No. It's the same problem as Wi-Fi in that sattelite services are unidirectional, but it has the added problem of insufficient speed.
It will work as an emergency backup but not as a basic daily connection. Sound will be choppy, and there will be a delay in video as well. Audio and video will typically not be linked sufficiently. 4G is actually pretty good. It's a very good idea to have a standby 4G hotspot at the ready in case your local internet service goes out for any reason.
Under no circumstances are your allowed to record patients. That is absolutely against HIPAA rules regarding confidentiality. Any teleconferencing software provided by American Telepsychiatrists will be administratively blocked for recording for all users. Use of third-party screen recording software is strictly prohibited and would be considered a breach of contract and result in contract termination and would likely justify a formal complaint to your State Medical Board.
The patients are being seen in a medical building and do not have any method for recording the session. Cell phone recording is not allowed and is monitored by local staff in the room.
Yes, but only if he/she has additional mental health training and is "Psych/Mental Health Certified."
We have a medically savvy corporate attorney who will provide us with the requirements to practice in each state in which you are licensed. We will make sure that any services you provide are within the legal requirements of each state and location.
Yes. We are a member of and adhere to the standard guidelines of the American Telemedicine Association TelementalHealth Chapter for Evidence-Based Practice for Telemental Health.
Here is a link for you to check out the ATA, and we recommend that you become a member yourself: http://www.americantelemed.org/home
