Meeting Patients Where They Are

The best care plans are the ones people can actually follow, and that starts with meeting patients where they are. We talk candidly about why telehealth and virtual care can feel radically different from traditional office visits, not just because you can join from home, but because you get room to breathe, explain, and be heard. From the jump, we lay out the basics and the boundaries, then dig into the real value: time, comfort, and a more patient-centered approach to healthcare. 

Kelli breaks down two sides of “meeting you where you are,” physically and emotionally. We share what it looks like when appointments run back-to-back, how telemedicine can protect your day from the waiting room spiral, and why patients often open up more when they are in a familiar environment. We also talk about the truth every provider learns fast: a plan only works if it fits your life. Sometimes that means adjusting the approach while keeping the diagnosis and standards of care steady. 

We get practical with healthcare technology too, including patient autonomy, remote monitoring, and home blood pressure tracking. If you deal with white coat syndrome, we explain why a well-done blood pressure log at home can be more accurate than a single high reading in a stressful clinic setting, and how to think about timing and cuff sizing. If you are curious about telehealth, urgent care alternatives, or how to build a safer, more honest patient-provider conversation, this one is for you. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Medical Disclaimer

Nicole 0:26

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Tattoos and Telehealth. We are going to talk about some pretty interesting things today. Our attorneys make us say this is not to be construed as medical advice. We're just two gals chatting it up. This also listening to or watching this podcast does not constitute a patient-provider relationship. Today we're going to talk about meeting patients where they are. And that's one of the things that is really cool about telehealth is that we're not in an office where we have 10 minutes to solve all your problems before we have to go to the next room. We actually have time to speak with you to meet you where you are. And I'm going to let Kelly take it from here. But this is where it really, really is important and valuable, even for us as providers, that we can take the time with you and not just kind of get the cliff notes and see you later. So, Kelly, go ahead and just take it from here. I know we really enjoy getting being able to have time with our patients.

Running Late Without Wasting Your Day

Adjusting Care Plans To Real Life

Kelli 1:25

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, that kind of comes, I see it as two pieces, right? I see it as meeting patients where they are physically, like in their home or in their car sometimes, or just wherever they are physically, you know, me in my office and my house. But then the second part to that is what sets you and I apart, I think, and what makes us really exceptional at this is listening to our patients and like emotionally meeting them where they are, like psychosocially meeting them where they are. And so those roads can intersect. And I love in the telehealth space how, you know, like for example, this week was really a busy, busy week because I was out some and I'm going to be out some next week. And so I was putting in a lot of patients, and our patient liaison Sarah is fantastic, and she was really trying to get our patients taken care of before I was out. But that meant that patients were back to back. And I never want patients to feel like they're not getting that time. So I run, I might run late with a patient. Well, the great thing about that is if you're the patient behind and you're the one that I'm running late, you're not sitting in a waiting room wondering where I'm at. You're not sitting in a cold exam room wondering where I'm at. Like Sarah can call you, say, Hey, Kelly's running late. If you need to go run an errand, or if you're sitting in your car, or you're like doing laundry. I haven't interrupted your day by running 10 minutes late, you know, like it wasn't that big a deal. And then I'm gonna pick up the phone and call you. So it wasn't a big disruption. So that's a great thing about us being able to do that. But specifically, I wanted to kind of highlight a case that was really interesting where I have a patient that she's she's fantastic, but she has a lot of things going on. She leads a very active lifestyle, she's very busy, she's on the go, she has a lot of things on her plate. And so being able to work through some of the issues that she has requires us to chip away at each of those things one by one. But that also means that I have to listen to what she's telling me when it comes to where is she able to meet me with those changes? Like, am I asking her to do things that are reasonable for her to do? Like, you know, if I'm asking her to do this thing and this thing and this thing to make these lifestyle changes, is that a reasonable request for me to ask of her? Um, and after a couple of meetings with her, it became very clear that this is a lifestyle for her. And some of those things she's not willing to change. And that's okay. But I think that one of the things that we really have to think about, and that Nicole and I have really, you know, honed in on and has become a great skill of ours and a passion is, you know, emotionally meeting patients where they are. Like if they're not gonna be able to meet me halfway. I was chatting with a friend earlier this morning and telling her, you know, sometimes I think of it in a physical sense of imagine we're meeting each other across country, like you're on the East Coast, I'm on the West Coast, and we decide we're gonna come together and meet on this bridge. But I have a patient that never got off her couch on the East Coast, and I came all the way across and I'm standing on this bridge waiting for her to get there. You know, a patient has to be willing to come. And but that also means that I have to be willing to meet my patients where they are and change their, you know, maybe change their plan of care, maybe change the the way that I approach it. And, you know, that's why, you know, Nicole and I work so well together. And when you have a practice or you have a partner, there's so many different ways to treat a certain thing. My assessment doesn't change, right? Like my diagnoses don't change, the way that, you know, the things about this particular patient, as far as you know, the concrete things don't change. But maybe the way that I approach them does change because I need to meet her where she is able to meet me. And that may not be middle of the country on a bridge. You know, it may be that she's only willing to give this piece or that piece. And so, you know, we had to change and adjust. And that's the other great thing about you know, about being able to do this from the comfort of our home is patients are often much more honest.

Nicole 5:22

Yes, I was gonna say, I that's exactly what I was gonna say is that if if we make a recommendation and the patient says, I'm really not gonna follow through with that, I love when you say that. Like, tell me that. Like, I'm okay with that. I don't want to follow through with everything that my doctor says either, but that's okay. Like that's like we like we're okay, we're okay with that.

Kelli 5:43

Yep. I think that telehealth has helped to bring out a source of honesty, maybe, in patients that they weren't able to feel like they could express before. Because even me as a provider, even me going and sitting in front of my PCP can sometimes you know get a little sweaty under the armpits, and you're like, do I want to confront him and tell him, you know, I don't agree with that, or I'm not gonna do this, or I'm not gonna do that. Like it's different. And so I respect that from patients. And, you know, being behind a computer screen has its, you know, you know, ups and downs. And we we've heard of keyboard warriors and people that can go off on things, but it also brings a sense of autonomy, I think, to patients where they feel like they can say how they really feel without feeling like they're going to be attacked because we're not in person and they're not sitting in my office in a strange environment in a sterile place that smells funny and they've been waiting for hours. And you know what I mean? Like they're in their home and they're in their comfort zone and they're in their safe space. So they can tell me how they feel, and that brings a whole other level to the visit and really I think allows patients to have better outcomes. I truly think that.

Nicole 6:54

I definitely think that it's a safer space for patients. And there is there is a place for in person. There, there definitely is. But as we go through and technology gets better and better, patients are more aware of their own health. I like when patients take responsibility for their health, monitor your blood pressure, monitor your heart rate. Now we have Apple watches. When you go to the pharmacy, stick your arm in the thing, take your blood pressure. And then when we have these connections, you can tell me your findings because it doesn't not like you have to go to the doctor in person just to get something done. Technology has allowed us where you can take responsibility. Patients can take responsibility for their health and come back and say, Look, this really didn't work for me. Or, you know, we started on this medication and my blood pressure is still high, you know? So it definitely has its pros. And as time goes on and technology goes on, patients are loving it. They are loving the autonomy, like Kelly said. You don't have to miss work always, right? You're not sitting in a waiting room, especially for urgent care. I mean, especially for urgent care. We see a lot of urgent care where patients just it's cheaper and they can't, you know, maybe you don't need to go to urgent care because you have, you know, a sniffle or a need to work note or whatever. And so meeting patients where they are may mean physical, like Kelly's saying, or it's maybe like a safer psychosocial thing.

White Coat Syndrome And Home BP Logs

Kelli 8:27

Yeah. Yeah. And especially when you have patients that maybe they have some type of ailment that doesn't allow them to be able to engage in person. Like they just they can't get past that barrier of being able to articulate what's going on when they're in front of someone. This gives them that option. This gives them that opportunity to be able to articulate what's going on with the safety of that safe space. And that's just that's huge. It's just incredible. Um, and I really think that that's what that's where telehealth helps to fill another gap. You know, telehealth fills a ton of gaps, but that's another big, you know, big one for patients, I think. We were talking about with this particular patient, you know, we were talking about the importance of not relying on certain things, you know. And she, you know, she brought up that she has white coat syndrome really bad. And like you said, being able to go to the pharmacy and check your blood pressure or having someone walk you through buying an appropriate size blood pressure cuff to check to check your blood pressure at home. Now, obviously, she's not coming to me and I'm checking her blood pressure in an office setting. You know, over the years, that was standard of care. You go to your blood, you go to your primary, you get your blood pressure check, they based all of your stuff on that reading. You know, over the years, how many times was that reading skewed by people that were upset, anxious, mad because they've been waiting for hours, you know, stressed because they were running late, had to take the day off work, have a sick kid at home, have, you know, whatever the situation was, the blood pressure probably wasn't accurate to begin with. But now we have a situation where I'm relying on what that patient is telling me. A blood pressure log based on me being able to teach her how to buy an appropriate sized cuff, how to make sure it's measured for the size of her arm, and send me a log with accurate readings that are true for her. At random times, not just when you're at an office at random times. Yeah, at random times of the day, like in the morning when she gets up or in the afternoon when she's at work or whatever the case may be. And that's probably a much more true reading for her, truly. I mean for sure.

How To Reach Us And Get Started

Quick Wrap Up

Nicole 10:23

One one high reading, you're not gonna you're gonna, you know, give a medication for. If it's been high, that's that's a that's a different thing. So yeah. So thank you for that. And I I think that's a very, very important conversation for you know, for everyone to have, especially as people get more into telehealth and they want to try it. You can try us. You can try us. Go to hamiltontelehealth.com and just click on get started. We'll be happy to happy to see you. Sometimes our visits are phone, sometimes they're video, a lot of times it can be patient preference. In some states, we can just do chat. So just just give us give us a whirl, look us up, say, hey, I'm just checking you out. So, you know, you can follow us, you can also message us, you can go on our website. There's tons of ways to reach us. We're super easy to reach. You can even text our office number, you know. You can you can text it or call it and you know, and we'll answer. You can send a smoke signal. So our girls are really good about that. They they read smoke signals pretty well. They are, they good, and they're good, yeah. Our our our staff is is really, really good. So all right, guys. Well, thank you for joining us today. We will keep it short and sweet. So we will see you next week and hope you guys all have a wonderful rest of the week. Take care, guys.