TELADOC: RECIPE FOR DISASTER

So, Teladoc is a company / platform that has you meet with a doctor on line for various purposes. I am getting ready to travel abroad and am fairly healthy. So, for me, this is a great use of my time, the doctor’s time etc. But, Teladoc and urgent care situations in general present a real risk of inadvertently promoting medical malpractice. The reason is that there is a lot of information that a doctor gleans from in person visits. And, I mean a doctor, not a physician assistant (PA) or a nurse practitioner (CRNP or NP). I strongly encourage you to see an MD once a year now that we are done with the whole masking experience. An in person visit allows the doc to see how you breathe, walk, inspect your bumps and bruises, see how your skin carries blood to your extremities, and a thousand other things that can signal you are healthy or not. I have worked on cases where someone went to urgent care, was misdiagnosed and died at home. I expect that these are not isolated events. I have not worked on Teladoc or remote doctoring cases, but it is just a matter of time for those to work through the system. Interestingly, radiologists have worked from home for years without too much trouble. However, your radiologist never interacts with the patient. The film studies are performed by a technician and read remotely and the results then conveyed to your doctor. While there are still plenty of medical malpractice cases against radiologists, they are rarely related to the remote aspect of their work. That is not the case with internal medicine doctors. Unfortunately, insurers have tried to reduce the level of expertise that you as a patient receive in an effort to reduce costs. “Physician Extender” is the polite moniker for the PA or NP that you see, but the truth is you are accepting a poorer level of care. Most likely you may even call your PA or NP “doctor” without realizing that they are not trained as a doctor. It is a sad state of affairs. Yes, it is hard to get to see a doctor and Teladoc makes that easier. But, there are a lot of unusual things that are hard and you would prefer a trained person see you in person rather than over a video feed. I promise.