An e-consult is an interprofessional (health care provider to dermatologist) remote evaluation of a patient locally. This affords you, as the referring physician, the opportunity to ask a question or seek additional specialist opinion on your patient's behalf.
Why use e-consults?
Our team recognizes that there is a national precedent to use e-consults for an asynchronous visit. We are able to provide guidance for primary care providers in treating patients for common dermatology conditions.
E-consults eliminate the need for patient travel and they lessen wait times by virtually connecting you with dermatology specialists for consultation and treatment. E-consults are an easy and useful way for our specialists to review your patient's health care issue and give recommendations for care. The technology is safe with strict patient privacy standards.
This process also improves continuity of care over “curb-side” consults as it provides a written record based on full information from the ordering provider. Both you and the consulted provider are reimbursed for your time spent.
What if a patient needs to be seen by a physician?
If our specialist advises that your patient needs to be seen by a physician in person, your patient will not be charged for the e-consult.
Schedule an e-consult for dermatology services
After you identify the need for an e-consult and your patient verbally consults, you will follow this basic workflow:
- Add image(s) to the patient's encounter in Epic using Haiku or Canto, depending on the specialty’s needs. You can annotate or enter comments for the images
- Order an e-consult and fill out a questionnaire regarding the patients condition and/or treatments
- By signing the order, the questionnaire and picture(s) route to a pool of specialists
- The specialist then reviews the questionnaire, pictures, and/or any other pertinent information and sends back a response
- You can then send a response to the patient using MyChart Patient Message or through a phone call