How Much Money Do Telemedicine Physicians Make?
Telemedicine is the practice of using technology to provide medical services remotely. With telemedicine, physicians can conduct consultations, refill prescriptions, perform diagnosis with live HD video and photos, as well as monitor patient health.
So, how much do telemedicine physicians actually make? Hourly rates range anywhere from $15 to $50 per hour and yearly wages range anywhere from $30,000 to $500,000 a year. This depends on whether or not the doctor is a full-time telemedicine physician, as well as other factors including location and specialization.
Do Telemedicine Physicians Earn More?
A telemedicine physician enjoys benefits that conventional physician jobs don’t offer, which includes financial advantages that stem from remote work:
- On top of more flexible hours, telemedicine physicians can scale their practice by tapping into new markets. Instead of exclusively serving their local community, a telemedicine physician has access to patients outside their state, especially areas that are lacking access to quality healthcare.
- Telemedicine physicians charge by the hour. Their finite resources become much more valuable because every call and interaction is billable. Telemedicine physicians aren’t expected to give an unlimited amount of time for a maximum amount of salary.
- Succint video calls replace long-winded in-hospital visits. As a result, a telemedicine physician can fit in more patients in one day, and conduct more sessions than they would have in a busy hospital.
Physician Salary By Specialization
Salary estimates for telemedicine jobs vary depending on location, job experience, and services offered. This is especially true in the United States where medical professionals can be compensated differently based on their location. The data listed below comes from a range of telemedicine physicians, including those that are:
- Self-employed and operating their own telemedicine company at home
- Those who are part of a hospital or practice and are using telemedicine as a supplement to conventional care
- Those who offer telemedicine outside of their hospital contracts
- Physicians who are working part time (less than 40 hours a week)
Listed below are the most telemedicine-friendly specializations in the United States:
Telemedicine Family Medicine
| Hourly rate | $15 to $200 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $28,000 to $386,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $191, 202 |
Primary care physicians are among the easiest practices to convert into telemedicine, with some physicians offering telemedicine-only consultation. Common duties of a telemedicine physician include diagnosing and treating mild symptoms, providing scheduled physical check-ups, and connecting patients with other specialists.
Telemedicine Psychologists and Psychiatrists
| Hourly rate | $25 to $181 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $60,000 to $300,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $189,000 |
Salary estimates for telemedicine psychologists and psychiatrists depend on their experience. Adult psychologists earn $2,000 to $5,000 more than child psychologists. Nonetheless, both specializations are suitable for telemedicine jobs. With constant communication, psychologists and psychiatrists are able to encourage better compliance and cooperation with their patients, leading to higher success rates.
Telemedicine Radiologists
| Hourly rate | $30 to $200 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $150,000 to $500,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $494,400 |
Teleradiology is one of the more lucrative specializations making the shift into telehealth and telemedicine, so much so that teleradiologists are earning a lot more than conventional radiologists without changing the core aspects of their profession.
Telemedicine Pediatricians
| Hourly rate | $45 to $100 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $45,000 to $250,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $190,000 |
Not all health issues concerning children are urgent, which is why consultations over telemedicine technology is ideal for pediatricians. Instead of going to the hospital or the emergency room, worried parents can easily access their telemedicine physician and get much-needed, urgent advice.
Telemedicine Cardiologists
| Hourly rate | $50 to $200 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $50,000 to $500,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $464,000 |
Managing congenital heart diseases and reducing the risk of complications becomes easier with telemedicine. Most of cardiology care involves patient monitoring, which is now even more accessible since patients can participate in consistent remote monitoring.
Telemedicine Gastroenterologists
| Hourly rate | $40 to $150 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $150,000 to $300,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $175,000 |
Gastro conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome and hemorrhoids are typically treated as outpatient conditions. Gastroenterologists who make the shift to become a telemedicine physician can still manage these non-emergency chronic conditions without a hospital visit. Common duties include checking for symptoms and providing prescriptions when necessary.
Telemedicine Endocrinologist
| Hourly rate | $30 to $200 per hour |
| Yearly rate | $60,000 to $280,000 |
| Average yearly rate | $200,000 |
On top of video conferencing, endocrinologists typically use trackers and other bioscanning devices to monitor glucose, blood pressure, and other data. These information will be sent directly to the hospital’s database so endocrinologists can keep track of their patients’ health remotely.
How to Get Started: Telemedicine Physician Jobs
Telemedicine doctors are growing in demand, particularly in the United States. To get started, you can look up available telemedicine physician jobs online in marketplaces like Job Hunt, Indeed, and Zip Recruiter.
These websites congregrate multiple listings, from one company to another, and collate it on one page for easier application. The salary for the physician jobs are typically posted, making it easier to decide whether or not you want to work with a specific clinic or practice.
On the other hand, you can also start your own telemedicine practice, and let your own time define what your physician salary is going to be. Get in touch with PracticeBloom today to learn more about telemedicine, and why you should consider becoming a telemedicine physician.
Read more: What Can Be Treated Through Telemedicine?
What Is the Future of Telemedicine?
The COVID-19 or novel coronavirus outbreak has forced millions of people around the world to stay in their homes, with unprecedented lockdowns and community quarantines occurring worldwide. Doctors are overworked and hospitals are crowded, but patients still need their regular care, with or without COVID-19 symptoms. Because of this, more and more patients have turned to the best alternative: telemedicine.
Telemedicine companies have received tens of thousands of new patients across the country, and are struggling to keep up with the ever-growing demand for telehealth solutions. Telemedicine is going through a period of enormous growth, and it is no longer just a side option for most people but the best option available.
So what is the future of telemedicine? There are still various obstacles that must be overcome, but with the right pressure and interest, telemedicine can thrive as we now have consumer access to the technologies and software required for telemedicine to be truly effective. In this article, we explain what those obstacles and technologies are, and how telemedicine might look in a few years.
Telemedicine and Coronavirus: Why Just Now
The first examples of telemedicine can be traced back to the 1950s, with doctors offering patients consultations over the phone. The top telemedicine companies that we see today generally began in the early 2000s, but were still crippled by the lack of high-speed internet and technology in most U.S. households.
Telemedicine has been an option for many years, but tradition and stigma against virtual visits has kept people trusting the traditional in-office doctor visits. For most people, much of the digital world still seems unfamiliar, and it is widely believed that something as important as your health should be handled in the real world rather than the virtual.
But the recent coronavirus outbreak across the world has changed things. Millions of people are locked in their homes but still require the advice and aid of a doctor. Telemedicine has become the alternative for most patients.
At a recent summit on innovation held by MassChallenge on the topic of the coronavirus crisis, Vice President of Digital Health Strategy at the American Medical Association, Meg Barron, had this to say about telemedicine:
“If there is any silver lining it’s that the [American Medical Association] along with many other organizations have been working for telehealth adoption for some time. Obviously, it is really having its moment right now and [has been] able to step up to keep primary care providers and patients safe on the front lines.”
According to Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, John Brownstein,
“We are doing more virtual visits in a given day than we did the entire proceeding year, so things can change. I don’t see us going back to the way things were, in a positive way. I think we’ve opened physicians’ eyes, opened up the administrators’ eyes, patients are recognizing the value. It has focused our team to deploy this at scale and these kinds of digital practices become core to the practice of medicine going forward.”
Telemedicine is definitely the future of healthcare. The questions now are: 1) What are the obstacles in its path; and 2) What technologies will help improve telemedicine moving forward?
Obstacles for Telemedicine
There are a few obstacles standing in the way of telemedicine becoming the main system of patient care. These are:
- Lack of Stakeholder Interest: The major proponents in promoting telemedicine are the healthcare professionals – clinics, hospitals, and insurance industry, but these businesses simply haven’t been interested in helping telemedicine develop. The main reason for this is they are content with existing models of healthcare and hospital admissions and are reluctant to evolve away into something new without being forced to do it.
- Patient Acceptance: The U.S. public interest also needs to accept virtual care health systems, but prior to the COVID-19 outbreak there was no reason for any major shift in interest. Patients must become more familiar with telemedicine, the level of care it can provide, and learn to trust that it can truly replace physical doctor visits.
- Physician Cooperation: Doctors spend years learning their craft, and telemedicine would require additional training and new sets of guidelines and medical regulations. They would also have to learn how to confidently diagnose patients without physical examinations, which can be limiting and something many doctors simply wouldn’t agree with.
- Legal and Liability Issues: Moving to the digital world can always be frustrating and difficult when it comes to legal and liability issues. Putting your appointments online and client information completely on shared networks increases the risk of hackers and data compromise. Rules and regulations must be rewritten with telemedicine in mind, and clinics have to equip themselves with high-end IT technology.
- Insurance: Until recently, it was very difficult to have an insurance company cover even just one virtual care appointment. Insurance companies need to incorporate space for telemedicine to allow the public to use it without paying out of pocket.
Telemedicine Tomorrow: Key Technologies
In the near future, major companies such as Amazon and Google will invest heavily in telemedicine growth to be part of the frontrunners of companies offering telehealth services across the country and the world.
We can expect telemedicine healthcare services to be spread across a multitude of private and government-owned service networks, with some for general public access and others with private networks for secure links between patients, doctors, clinics, and hospitals.
The key technologies to help develop the expansion and growth of telemedicine are already available today, and simply need to be pushed into place and usage. These key technologies are:
- 5G: While 4G networks are sufficient for our telemedicine usages today – video conferences between patients and doctors – the upcoming 5G network will provide the necessary increase in bandwidth for even more ambitious health system virtual care uses, such as diagnosis and examination methods that involve more than just live video services.
- Big Data: Big Data is an existing technology branch that already has its place in healthcare regulations. With proper usage, it can be used to provide on-demand patient historical records, allowing telehealth healthcare providers immediate information to a new patient wherever one may be.
- AI and Machine Learning: With sophisticated implementation of AI and Machine Learning Technologies, doctors will have greater analysis tools of their patient data, allowing them to immediately compare data with historical records on the shared medical network, evaluate more effectively and form more informed opinions.
- Implantables: Implantable technology will be a huge future proponent of telemedicine programs. Implanted chips can be inserted into the patient’s skin, allowing real-time monitoring and care of their vital signs – blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, glucose levels, blood oxygen, cholesterol, mental health signs, and more. This gives the doctors the information they need to better evaluate patients across distances with no need for a physical examination. We may start to see widespread growth of this technology in the next five years.
- Augmented and Mixed Reality: When video calls are no longer enough, augmented and mixed reality glasses will equip the physician with a more enhanced virtual view of the patient, allowing them to turn a 2D video call into a 3D experience, as if the patient is in the office.
Tomorrow’s telemedicine services may seem cool and futuristic, but the technologies we use as telemedicine grow will play a crucial part in limiting and controlling future outbreaks that we may face. Developing, adopting, and accepting these new methods of health care services as a culture is not only necessary, but our responsibility to better streamline patient-doctor experiences.
Grow Your Telemedicine Services with PracticeBloom Today
PracticeBloom is the leading agency for healthcare marketing and we are ready to help your telemedicine health systems grow and evolve into the future. Develop your telehealth practices and allow our team of health care marketing experts to find and connect with your ideal audience.
Call or email us today and find out more about how PracticeBloom can make your telemedicine service explode overnight – become the number one virtual care provider in your area today.
Read more: Who Can Practice Telemedicine?
Who Can Practice Telemedicine?
With more and more clinics adopting telemedicine services, more healthcare providers want to chime in. This compels medical professionals to ask the question: who can use telemedicine?
Cardiologists, dermatologists, and psychologists are leading the way in terms of advancing and promoting telemedicine, but that doesn’t mean the technology is only limited to these specializations.
Telemedicine isn’t so much about the specialization as it is about the function. It just so happens that cardiology, dermatology, and psychology are three fields that benefit most from transitioning into remote patient care.
In this article, we share the top eight medical fields that are now using telemedicine, as well as some tips on how to introduce this into your practice. Read on to learn more about the best practices regarding telemedicine marketing.
The Three Different Types of Telemedicine
Telemedicine is the practice of using technology to deliver medical services. Telemedicine isn’t just about redefining the physician-patient relationship; it is ultimately used to streamline processes involving diagnosis and image sharing over secure online networks.
Technically any medical service is capable of adapting telemedicine since it’s more about the function and less about the specialization. Listed below are the three different types of telemedicine services:
Real-Time Video Conferencing
Video conferencing is the most popular form of telemedicine services. With just an internet connection and access to a secure platform, patients in search of the best quality of care can now access doctors across state lines and receive medical advice and prescriptions remotely.
There are two different video conferencing models. The hub-and-spoke model requires patients to travel to a hub or a service that will connect them to their healthcare provider. A telemedicine company set up in a rural area can connect patients to a vast network of health care institutions, allowing them to choose a practice or clinic, regardless of location.
The other model involves using one’s personal connection at home to connect with the doctor. Hospitals and clinics with their own secure, HIPAA compliant telemedicine platform can directly connect to clients without using a service provider. This allows patients to participate in check-ups, follow-ups, and other non-emergency clinical services from the comfort of their own homes.
Store and Forward
The store and forward aspect of telemedicine involves storing information such as imaging scans, test results, and other data used to reach a diagnosis. These are then forwarded to another medical provider, often a specialist, for further diagnosis.
The store and forward model can also help patients acquire a second opinion; with telemedicine, patients are able to reach out to different telemedicine practices and ask them to reevaluate the diagnosis.
Remote Patient Monitoring
In situations where a consistent hospital visit is necessary, remote patient monitoring makes it easy to provide a consistent level of care and assistance, even without in-person doctor visits. Because patients don’t have to go out of their way to experience the best level of care, physicians with a telemedicine program often report lower readmission rates and improved cooperation on the patients.
To make remote patient monitoring work, video visits aren’t enough. Healthcare facilities will typically design biosensors so they can track glucose, blood, heart pressure, and other health factors in real-time. These devices transmit the information to the hospital’s database, which will keep doctors up to date with their patient’s health and possible problems.
Benefits Of Adopting A Telemedicine Solution
Emergency Room Allocation
Acute issues don’t always warrant a hospital visit, much less a trip to the emergency room. With telemedicine technologies, patients can get in touch with their primary care physician and have their ailment evaluated. This will allow your clinic or practice to control your resources and allocate emergency room services for actual urgent care.
Doctors Won’t Be Overscheduled
Follow-up visits can be long and tedious. By adopting a telemedicine practice, both doctors and patients don’t have to spend all day in the waiting room. Sessions can be conducted at home and concluded in a more efficient manner.
Doctors Are Compensated For Calls
Healthcare practitioners aren’t alien to midnight calls. By offering telemedicine solutions, you are providing an official platform to your patients where every call is billable. Patients will have to schedule webcam interactions online within office hours.
More Efficient Diagnosis Process
By connecting your practice or clinic with a network of other specialists, you can easily refer your patients to other medical professionals through telemedicine technology. It’s a great way to expand your customer base and improve your patients’ overall experience.
More importantly, it allows you to provide additional services even without having to hire additional professionals and invest in new tech. For instance, you can send lab results to other professionals in the healthcare industry and relay their findings to your customers.
Lower Readmission Rates
This is especially true for doctors dealing with chronic diseases. With regular patient management, it becomes easier to hold regular sessions and maintain their health. With regular symptom checking and monitoring, you can provide continuous support to your patients, enough to reduce their risk of developing a complication.
Improved Compliance
More accessible communication models mean consistent care. Most patients opt out of follow-up services because of travel and scheduling difficulties. Once these bottlenecks are removed via telemedicine, patients, who now save more time and in-hospital costs, are likelier to comply with your instructions and show up to meetings.
Top Telemedicine Fields
As a practice, telemedicine has almost limitless applications. Listed below are the top eight most promising telemedicine adaptations, and how each specialization can deliver a better level of care through videoconferencing and other telemedicine services:
Dermatology
Acute dermatology issues such as rashes are considered outpatient services and can be treated even without a hospital visit. Dermatologists can prescribe creams and other medications necessary to treat the skin condition. With high-definition video, dermatologists can diagnose skin issues even without physical inspection.
Psychiatry
By using telemedicine to connect with their patients, psychiatrists and psychologists can ensure patient compliance and better cooperation. Because patients don’t need to go out of their way to attend a session, the stigma associated with seeking behavioral treatment is also mitigated
Cardiology
Cardiologists can use remote patient monitoring to manage conditions like congenital heart defects. With regular communication through telemedicine visits, patients are less likely to develop complications and avoid emergency costs.
Gastroenterology
Cardiologists can use remote patient monitoring to manage conditions like congenital heart defects. With regular communication through telemedicine visits, patients are less likely to develop complications and avoid emergency costs.
OB/GYN
With live video conferencing, OB/GYNs can conduct remote consultations to patients who have just given birth. With this tool, they can guide patients and provide support as the patient recovers from giving birth.
Urology
Patients, particularly male patients, suffering from both acute and chronic urinary tract infections can now attend follow-up sessions with video conferencing. Instead of having patients wait in the waiting room, delivering post-operative care becomes easier via telemedicine.
Pediatrics
Urgent concerns regarding infant health can now be addressed using telemedicine. By doing so, worried parents can connect with their pediatricians at home, who can then assess whether or not an issue is worth a visit to the emergency room. Patients seeking additional advice from pediatrics may now do so through videoconferencing.
Radiology
Radiology centers can open a telehealth program and provide second opinion services. This will allow them to interact with patients in an entirely different area, effectively opening up their clinic to more communities for more bookings.
Setting Up a Telemedicine Practice: How It Works
The set-up depends on your resources. If you are able to connect with a service that can supply you with a platform, then you don’t need to host your telemedicine services with a third party service. This way, your practice or clinic can connect with your doctors without leaving their homes.
However, telemedicine is more than just setting up a video conferencing service. At PracticeBloom, our telemedicine marketing package includes the creation of expertly written content, social media ads, as well as newsletters – all of which are designed to educate both your employees and your patients.
To get started on your telemedicine practice, you must learn more about the workload and bottlenecks experienced by your physicians and specialists. This way, you can determine whether or not adding a telemedicine option will be beneficial for your patients.
Is Telemedicine Right For You?
At the end of the day, any hospital or clinic can set up a telemedicine practice, regardless of specialization. The complexity of your telehealth technology depends on several factors, including local state laws about telehealth and person-to-person consultations, as well as your current resources.
Learn more: How to Market Your Telemedicine Practice
How to Market Your Telemedicine Practice
Telemedicine is on the rise, with more and more patients seeking alternative means of healthcare and visiting a doctor. With modern internet and technology situated in most homes, virtual care is a viable means of healthcare. This allows any practice to offer care to patients who can’t leave their homes, help free up congested schedules, and expand their audience.
But like any new service or product, it is necessary that you market and promote your telemedicine practice. In this article, we explain what it takes to properly and successfully create a telemedicine marketing campaign.
Why Proper Marketing is Crucial for Telemedicine
For many health practices and clinics, there are little to no marketing choices to be made. Word-of-mouth is often sufficient to ensure a steady stream of local patients. But when marketing a service like telemedicine, relying on simple word-of-mouth isn’t enough
True marketing tactics must be employed to help a clinic launch and maintain their telemedicine medical practice. This is because of the following:
- New service: Everyone knows what a doctor’s appointment is like, but much fewer are familiar with a virtual doctor’s appointment. Although an increasingly popular method of healthcare, telemedicine has yet to enter the spotlight, and many patients are simply unaware of how it works.
- Online competition: Health clinics and practices often thrive in their local community, but in the online world, your competition is more than just the other practices in your town. Patients can select from regional or even national choices, making competition much higher than before.
- Patient education: As with any new service or product, customers seek education and understanding. Producing your own branded educational content is crucial towards securing your foothold in your local telemedicine market.
With telemedicine, online marketing is the name of the game. You want patients who are familiar with and comfortable with the online world, which is why all marketing efforts have to be centered on your online presence.
Below we’ve prepared five steps you should take to market your telemedicine service:
Define Your Target Market: Questions to Ask
The first step of any marketing plan is asking yourself and your team all the important market questions. There needs to be a shared understanding across the board of your direction, your goals, your end game, and your tactics. Without this shared understanding, your marketing decisions will be inconsistent, confusing, and overall ineffective.
Consider the following questions with your practice staff and team:
- Is your goal simply to transition your current patients to a telemedicine service model, or do you want to broaden the reach of your patient services?
- If so, how far are you willing to reach around your local area? Do you want to be a city, state, region, or one of the biggest national telemedicine service providers?
- Would your team be able to handle a 10%, 20%, and 30% increase in patients with telemedicine services in place? How would this affect your doctors and staff?
- Is your goal to increase your overall number of patients or to improve convenience for your doctors and current patients?
- Will your telemedicine services be offered to all patients as a general practice or to specific patients with certain issues?
Maximize Your Online Presence
In the digital world, look and functionality are just as important as credentials and training. When a potential patient opens your website, they need to get the same feeling of trust and comfort that they would when walking into a clean and well-kept clinic lobby or waiting room. If your website looks outdated or is difficult to navigate, potential patients can be turned off, and they would instead seek out another option.
Your online marketing efforts branch out from your online presence, and your online presence starts with your website. Does your website convert visitors? Does it clearly explain your credentials and service details, and offer your visitors the educational service line resources they seek? Do your patients ever have difficulty making bookings, appointments, or finding crucial information?
With our health care marketing team at PracticeBloom, we have created, designed, and launched countless beautiful and functional websites for all types of clinics and practices, including telemedicine. We understand the landing page aesthetic and content marketing materials that the general public expect when searching for a health care provider, and we specialize in infusing your brand with the design elements that are data-tested to work.
Meet Them Where They Are: Targeted Online Ads
Paid online advertising is more nuanced and complex than ever before. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer the tools and data for marketers to truly tailor a program fitting for any specific audience.
With a team of healthcare marketing experts like PracticeBloom, your telemedicine services and practice can be marketed and pinpointed to the exact audience you need. We will work with your team to understand the key demographics that would best respond to your video visit ads, and facilitate an online ad campaign that maximizes this information. Our campaigns are designed to convert with the lowest cost-per-click and cost-per-conversion rates you can find to get the most out of your bottom line.
Promote Your Telemedicine Credentials and Training
When people search for telemedicine services, they want more than just an established doctor and practice. They want to know that they are in good hands specific to telemedicine and video visit virtual care. It’s another way to stand out from the intense online competition: specialize your credentials and training in the telemedicine service line space.
With accreditation with the ATA, your doctors can have official qualification for online patient consultation. This streamlines patient trust and acceptance in your telemedicine services, and is the first step to helping your doctors transition to the world of virtual care.
The ATA also has a number of partnered training programs which your doctors can complete for further qualifications. Not only does this build greater trust with your patients, but it also ensures that your healthcare providers perform consistently and professionally across all patients. Become one of the most trusted providers out there.
Promos, Online Reputation, and Social Media Management
Last but not least: your day-to-day online presence. When everything else is set up and established, from your website to your credentials to your knowledge hub, it’s crucial to maintain day-to-day activity in your online space as one of the top providers in your market.
This includes:
- Promos: No one can resist a good promo. With PracticeBloom, we can help you discuss and promote your latest practice promotions: from “Your First Virtual Appointment Is Free!” to “Recommend a Friend For A Special Prize”, and create the marketing materials you need. No telemedicine launch is complete without a good promotion
- Online Reputation: Reviews are crucial for your potential patients in this market: they use it to judge you, whether the reviews are fair or not. Respond to your negative reviews, promote your great reviews, and help convince all your patients to review top feedback
- Social Media Management: Daily activity shows patients that your virtual practice is alive and running. Respond to chat requests, answer questions, and help your patients navigate their way into their next appointment
PracticeBloom: Promote Your Telemedicine Practice with the Pros Today
PracticeBloom is the home of the best medical websites on the internet. We’ve designed and launched countless healthcare websites, helping healthcare providers all across the country connect with their ideal patients.
If you are looking for a telemedicine marketing campaign that is guaranteed to bring in the numbers, PracticeBloom is the team for you. Contact us today to find out more about our services and how our patient-first campaigns have helped thousands of people nationwide.
Read more: Pros and Cons of Telemedicine