Living on the island means doing a lot of telemedicine. There are few specialists on the island, and from where I live most doctor offices are at least an hour away. Most specialists require commercial airline travel for an in-person visit. Telemedicine saves a lot of time and trouble.
What’s strange to me is that most providers refuse to give the teleconferencing information until minutes before the appointment. I always made sure my patients got a link when they scheduled, and again at least 24 hours before the appointment time. Otherwise, how can they test their setup and make sure that they have everything right? Indeed, I’ve had teleconferencing systems fail and there just isn’t time to do the tiniest bit of debugging so either the appointment fails altogether or you end up with just a telephone call, which I find to be suboptimal.
I think doctor appointments are stressful enough without adding time-constrained technology issues to the visit.
—2p