Have you ever struggled through a teletherapy visit?
Ended the treatment too early?
Or felt frustrated with all the new barriers this new form of healthcare presents for you and your patients?
If you have, then check out these top teletherapy tips for speech, occupational, and physical therapists. That way by the end of this article you will no longer survive but will instead thrive during your next teletherapy session!
Prep Your Patient
If possible, before your visit send the patient a clear message on what things they need to consider before their first teletherapy visit with you:
Be ready for exercise or activities
Log in 10 minutes early
Use a hands-free camera
Wear comfortable clothing
Caregivers are welcome to join
If able, find a larger space in your home
Avoid outside distractions (dogs, siblings, etc)
Make sure your internet is connected and secure
Prepare Your Environment
Spend 10 minutes giving this some thought, and then you will be ready to log in and go every time after. Here are some ideas:
Use a well-lit room
Bring the camera to eye height
Upgrade your camera to an HD camera for better picture quality
Place a therapy table in the background for quick exercise demonstration
Separate yourself from any ears that are not part of the patients care team
Use A HIPAA-Compliant Teletherapy Platform
Responsibility falls on you, the therapist, to make sure you are using a HIPAA-compliant teletherapy software. This software is required to maintain HIPAA-compliant safeguards like:
Access Controls
Risk Assessments
Authentication
Auditing
Business Associate Agreements
Data Integrity
Ideally - End-to-End Encryption
We recommend you save yourself the headache and simply seek out a HIPAA-compliant teletherapy hosting provider for this task. There are several broad telemedicine hosting providers on the market, but if you want specifically a teletherapy software that is speech, physical, and occupational teletherapy focused and affordable, then we recommend looking into Ambiki’s teletherapy platform.
Perform A Practice Run
Don’t get caught looking unprofessional to your patient during your teletherapy visit. Trial run the teletherapy software: click around, make mistakes, share your screen, open/close windows, learn how to educate your patient on their home set-up, and log in/out.
It sounds silly, but this step is super important not only for your patient, but also for building the therapist’s confidence with using the platform and delivering an effective treatment.
Prepare A Plan Of Attack
Sure, you might be a seasoned speech, occupational, or physical therapist, but providing a targeted, reproducible, and progressive treatment during a teletherapy session can come as quite the shock to your system.
You will find yourself having to use new areas of your brain as you redesign many of your go-to treatments to make them teletherapy ready. That is why I suggest sitting down and preparing an activity list that you can fall back on to prevent you from feeling limited.
For example, while a single leg prone press up might sound easy to cue the patient to perform in-clinic, it is a whole other experience when a patient has to try and figure out how to perform this exercise within the limitations of their home environment.
Establish A “Webside Manner”
Sure, you have heard of a “bedside manner,” but have your heard of a “webside manner”? Surprise, it’s the same thing!
Make sure to do all of the same things you do when establishing a bedside manner but transfer this now over to your teletherapy visit. Establish rapport, build trust, look into the camera, make the patient feel heard and relaxed. You know what to do, so don’t overcomplicate this step.
Be Transparent
Tell a patient when you don’t think teletherapy is appropriate for their needs. Maybe you have tried your best, but their at-home exercises aren’t doing the trick. Then know that it’s OK to be transparent, and let them know that you want to try new treatments like dry needling or manual therapies in person.
Or perhaps the patient’s individual limitations don’t make teletherapy the “right fit”.
For example, what if the patient is hard of hearing, needs a medical interpreter, has low vision, or struggles to navigate the software? These are all great examples of when it’s important to be transparent with your patient.
Find A Teletherapy Platform With Built-in Speech, Occupational, and Physical Therapy Tools
The simplest way to improve both the therapist and patient teletherapy experience is to simply use a teletherapy software that was created specifically for SLPs, OTs, and PTs. By doing so you can open up access to therapy-specific tools and resources that you never would have had otherwise.
We highly recommend looking into Ambiki’s teletherapy platform for this because it is designed BY therapists FOR therapists. Ambiki’s rehab-tailored teletherapy brings virtual rehab into the 21st century! Click here to learn more!
