About Telemedicine Visits

Being a patient at Peaceful Balance Health & Wellness gives you flexibility in how to choose to conduct your medical visits. We have a fully functional telemedicine service available through our charting system. Should you choose to schedule a telemedicine appointment there are a few things you should know.

First – only established patients can see our providers by telemedicine. If you are a new patient your first appointment must be in person. Next – telemedicine visits are not suitable for every medical problem. Sometimes we need to see you in person and conduct a hands-on physical examination.

CRITERIA FOR TELEMEDICINE APPOINTMENTS
Telemedicine visits are easy through the CareSpan Digital Platform but there are minimum internet speeds necessary for the visit to go smoothly and your computer or smartphone MUST have a camera and microphone. (It is more difficult to have a virtual appointment from your smartphone than from a laptop or desktop computer due to differences in cellular carriers.)  

You can test your internet speed before logging in to your appointment by going to peacefulbalance.carespan.clinic and clicking on the orange “Readiness Test” button. This will analyze your device and internet and let you know if the visit is likely to go smoothly. If your test fails any portion please check connections and computer and if the failures continue we may not be able to complete the virtual visit.

HOW TO ACCESS YOUR APPOINTMENT
There are 2 ways to join a CareSpan telemedicine appointment:

• You can click on the link in your email and this will take you directly to the appointment – you should plan on logging in about 10-15 minutes before the appointment time so that you can troubleshoot any computer issues and so that you can enter your vital signs and complete a review of systems prior to the nurse practitioner arriving.

• You can also access your virtual appointment by logging into your portal and joining the appointment from there. If you have a co-pay for office visits you will be required to pay this prior to entering the visit so please have your credit card, HSA, or FSA card ready to enter.

GETTING READY FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT

PRIOR to your appointment (within 30 minutes of your appointment time), it is very important that you weigh yourself, check your blood pressure and pulse, gather all of your current medications and supplements where they can easily be gotten, and make sure you have a quiet, private place to join the appointment. Virtual visits pass very quickly and having your measurements and information entered before the visit starts allows us to focus solely on your concerns.

 It is not necessary to have a headset or earbuds, but this can make the appointment go more smoothly by filtering out background noise.

Once you enter your data the nurse practitioner will be alerted by CareSpan that you are ready to be seen. You may enter the appointment up to 15 minutes prior to the scheduled time but if you do not enter by 15 minutes after the scheduled start time for the appointment the link will expire.

Try to enter the virtual appointment only once to prevent the link from shutting down.  Once your practitioner enters the “exam room” you should not exit the appointment for any reason. After you have seen the nurse practitioner and the visit is over you may leave the visit.

Your visit information will be available in your patient portal immediately after your nurse practitioner completes her notes and orders.

If during a telemedicine visit you have a power failure, loss of internet connection, or become disconnected for any reason, call the office immediately 717-440-0098.