How to provide telehealth therapy for your patients

Are your patients worried about coming to your clinic because of COVID? Are they asking lots of questions about telehealth? If these are questions that pertain to your practice, then you should consider offering telehealth therapy services. 

This type of therapy wasn’t well known until the COVID pandemic hit, yet it’s been rapidly growing as patients and care providers alike discover how beneficial it can be. Telehealth physical therapy involves working with patients via a secure online video link; you may also have heard it called telePT or virtual PT. 

Here are five things you’ll want to consider if you are thinking about providing telehealth therapy to your patients: 

1. Check with your state — Many states have laws that regulate what type of physical therapy services can be provided. In some states, these services don’t include telePT. Others do include this service in their laws, and still others are adding them in. Before adding virtual PT to your practice, check to make sure your state allows you to offer it. 

2. Contact your insurance partners — Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, many insurance providers didn’t cover virtual PT. However, this position may no longer be true for your partners. It’s important to check with them to see what services and particular ICD codes they’ll cover. This information can affect which services you offer to your patients. 

3. Check your liability insurance — No medical professional needs to be told how important liability insurance is. Prior to offering telePT, you’ll need to ensure that your liability coverage extends to services offered virtually. If it doesn’t, you may need to update your policy or look at a provider whose policies do cover virtual services. 

4. Decide which services to offer — Not every physical therapy practice will want to offer the same types of telehealth services. To decide which services you want to offer, you should consider factors such as: 

• Your patient population.
• What type of payers you have.
• What conditions you’re commonly treating. 
• What issues you would feel comfortable treating virtually.

5. Do some research on platforms — There are a growing number of telePT platforms out there, and you’ll want to choose one that’s going to meet your needs. You should consider several factors when looking at telePT platforms, including: 

• Are they HIPAA compliant?
• Can the platform enter into a business associate agreement with your practice? 
• Does the platform pass a comprehensive risk assessment?

Agile Virtual PT offers an effective option for telehealth therapy

Ready to start offering telehealth physical therapy to your patients? Our team at Agile Virtual PT is ready to partner with you to help you accomplish this goal. We’re an affiliate of Alliance Physical Therapy Partners, which has more than 40 years of experience offering outpatient physical therapy services. Our team can also offer you benefits like: 

• Reducing your patients’ out-of-pocket costs by 47%.
• A network of 400+ licensed clinicians. 
• High patient satisfaction.
• Decreasing the number of visits needed to meet functional outcomes and treatment goals. 

Contact our team today for more information about all the services we offer or to request a demo from one of our representatives.