3 Ways to Increase Digital Care Adoption Among Providers

Help your providers get on board by showcasing power users, providing tech support, and highlighting patient preferences.

Digital care’s meteoric rise began just as the pandemic took off, and all indications suggest it’s here to stay. States that were once unwilling to reimburse for virtual visits are now on board with some also passing parity legislation requiring insurers to reimburse equally for in-person visits and virtual visits, according to MedCity News.

So why, with all that momentum behind digital care, are some providers reluctant to use it?

In onboarding enterprise healthcare organizations such as Envision Healthcare, Concentra, and Banner Health, our dedicated customer success teams have picked up a few tips and tricks that any health system can use to help drive provider adoption. Here are three they find particularly effective.

#1 Form a User Group & Showcase Power Users

For every provider who is resisting digital care, there are many more who are embracing it. In fact, four out of five physicians used telehealth during the pandemic, according to a two-part survey by Decision Resources Group involving nearly 5,000 practicing U.S. physicians.

One strategy is to get “power users” and non-users in the same room (or video call), where they can share and hash things out. A colleague’s testimonial is sometimes the nudge providers need to see digital care tools in a different light.

• Ask power users what they like about digital care. How do they make it work for their practice? What do their patients say about it?
• Ask non-users why they aren’t using digital care. What would it take for them to get started?

As these two groups share their experiences, chances are the power users’ enthusiasm will rub off on everyone else.

#2 Highlight Training and Support

Digital care is easy to use, but it isn’t always effortless. That’s why strong technical support is essential. Your digital care technology provider should have a team of technology platform experts who are readily available to troubleshoot any issues that pop up among all users.

Make sure you’ve partnered with a digital care partner that goes the extra mile by offering high-touch technical support and training for all users: providers, patients, schedulers/admins and data analysts. Educational videos help, too. In just a few minutes, users can learn how to process billing, run reports and much more. And if they have a problem they can’t solve, their hands-on customer success manager is just a phone call, text or an email away.

#3 Emphasize Patient Satisfaction

Convenience. Cost savings. Safety. These are just a few reasons patients say they like telehealth, also referred to as “virtual care” or “digital care.” According to a recent Fierce Healthcare article, many physicians still have a concern about the quality of care delivery via digital care. Yet a recent study by Harvard Business Review suggests that patients are more apt to give higher satisfaction ratings for telehealth than in-person care.

If nothing else sways providers to use digital care tools, the promise of increased patient satisfaction just might. After all, patient care is at the heart of everything providers do.

And in the words of our CTO and on-staff futurist Miles Romney, “Virtual care is simply … care. It just happens to take place wherever and whenever a patient needs it.”