In-Person to Telehealth Visit Conversion Guide

 

January 11, 2023

 

Penn Medicine has developed infrastructure to rapidly convert in-person visits to telehealth visits and automatically notify patients of these conversions at scale. Practices can leverage this infrastructure to manage conversions without the need to delegate to the Access Center in the case of mass in-person office closure (e.g. natural disaster, COVID-19, etc.).

Step 1. Consider the following before converting visits to telehealth:

• Patient does not demonstrate the following symptomatology
  • Severe shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
  • Chest pain
  • Headache and stiff neck (can't touch chin to chest)
  • Too weak to stand
  • Fainting or passing out
  • High fever (>104F, 40C)
    • If they are experiencing these symptoms, have them call 911 or go directly to physician's office immediately.
• Visit adheres to out-of-state telehealth guidelines. More information can be found on our Connected Health Support site (must access on Penn Medicine network): https://connectedhealth.uphs.upenn.edu/node/41 
• Patient is comfortable with telehealth technology
  • Switchboard displays this icon if the patient has used BlueJeans in the past:

• • Note: patients no longer need to download the BlueJeans app to do a telehealth visit – BlueJeans will work from most web browsers
• If the patient is scheduled for other in-person visits on the same day, avoid telehealth conversion or assist the patient with finding a private room to complete their telehealth visit
• Consider patient preferences

Step 2. When converting individual visits (non-group visits), follow the "change" appointment workflow rather than "cancel/reschedule" workflow in PennChart.

• This ensures that patients will receive automated notification of the change to a telehealth visit and subsequent messaging related to the telehealth visit. 

• Please note, when converting an in-person group visit to a group telemedicine visit, the “cancel/reschedule” workflow must be used to ensure all patients receive the same visit link.

When a conversion happens, patients have already received in-person reminders from the original visit. When possible, remind them they should reference the most recent reminders.

• The most common telehealth visit types are the following (though your practice may be using other custom telehealth visit types as well):
  • NPV MANAGEMENT DURING COVID-19 [3599]
  • RPV MANAGEMENT DURING COVID-19 [3592]
  • TELEHEALTH NON-BILLABLE [3621]
  • TELEHEALTH GROUP SESSION [3654]
  • TELEHEALTH GROUP NON-BILLABLE [3655]
• Please email EnterpriseSchedgistrationSupport@uphs.upenn.edu with any questions about the telehealth appointment conversion workflow within PennChart.

Step 3. Patients will receive the following automated text and/or email upon conversion, as long as conversion occurs at least 2 hours before the visit. Through these messages, patients can navigate to their customized Visit Guide, which includes the BlueJeans link for their visit:

 

Please email PennConnectedHealth@pennmedicine.upenn.edu with any additional questions.

In addition to the automated messaging pictured above, you can optionally use Switchboard to bulk message patients about opting in to telehealth visit conversions or to send an additional confirmation that a conversion has been completed.

1. Select the In Person button, then Select.

 

2. Select Add all appts on this page.

When necessary, you can filter patients by states (i.e. PA, NJ, DE).

When the necessary filters and patients have been selected, Send bulk message.

 

3. If there are multiple pages of patients, a warning sign will display in the upper right hand side of the screen, indicating you must select patients on other pages.

4. After selecting Send bulk message, select In Person.
5. There are two telehealth conversion message templates.

Selecting the Offer telemed template will allow patients to opt in to converting their visit to telehealth.

Selecting the Convert to telemed template will send patients an FYI that their visit will be converted to telehealth.

Of note, this template requires you to monitor for patient replies by selecting the Are you expecting a reply? toggle.