I bet there was a time in your life when you went in early for a doctor’s appointment only to be greeted by an awfully long line of people waiting to be called. Or perhaps that time when you just would like to have your prescription refilled and the doc’s secretary put you on the waiting lounge for God-only-knows how long, seated on that totally-unkind-to-your-back kind of plastic bucket chair! This is exactly what your virtual doctor would like to eliminate when they put up a way for you to contact them without having to actually go to their offices and see them in person.
Virtual doctors are real doctors by the way, and they are your real doctors who have your records and whose offices you visit for consultation. Please don’t be fooled by websites claiming they are your virtual doctors as most of these websites are just reference sites wherein you can search an illness or condition and they will spew out definition, causes, suggested treatments and whatnot. In other words, they may be reviewed by real doctors but they are not specifically written for your condition. One good thing to remember when looking for a virtual doctor is that they are in a “group site”, meaning there will be a group of doctors who you can contact on that site: specific doctors with names—your doctor’s name. Better yet, ask your own doctor if he or she is doing virtual services and ask for a step-by-step procedure on how to contact your doctor online. Another thing to consider when trying to contact a real, live virtual doctor is that they too have fees which you have to pay while a reference site won’t have any.
What started as an experimental way of getting medical services into far flung areas is now a path more and more doctors are starting to brave—and they never regret a single day they did since the convenience seems to be working both ways. Once all set and settled, your doctor will be able to make quick diagnoses on your health status in cases of emergency. It is indeed a faster–and might also be the cheapest—way for seniors to contact their doctors. For caregivers who experienced having to drive their seniors to and fro their doctors, especially seniors with mobility problems, well, virtual doctors are a dream since they don’t even have to go out of the house anymore or try to sound right when asked to describe a condition.
By using a webcam, the patient can now show their conditions to their doctors and get the right diagnosis and of course, the right course of action for the condition instead of second-guessing what’s wrong just because it is too inconvenient for you to travel to the doctor’s office. Although the wait could be anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour, seniors who already tried virtual doctors guarantee that the wait is much bearable than having to line up 20 minutes in an office without anything to do other than wait.
