Well, physicians haven't quite made it to the level of lawyers by getting paid by the "phone or research minute", but at last some major insurers are agreeing to pay for email communication between doctors and patients!

The trend is described in Insurers look at virtual visits to doctors on The Philadelphia Inquirer website.

And to figure out the "how-to", here is a useful lead article in the CAFP May 2008 newsletter on Practice Management today, devoted to the Virtual Office Visit and including details on:

• how to implement the practice of virtual medical visits (Guidelines for non face-to-face services)
• how to document them (Documenting an Online Visit)
• how to submit the claims for payment (Coding for online visits). (Look up "Billing" in the Archives if you are reading this after May 2008, and access the May 2008 issue)
• how to promote this new practice service to your current and prospective patients (Getting the word out)

An entrepreneurial physician practice owner would do well to evaluate how to use this information to legitimately boost revenues.

And in case you have forgotten about the merits of using online communication with patients, here is a previous blog post on becoming an email savvy practice.

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