Top Doctors offers free telemedicine to doctors who need it to care for patients

Solidarity help to decongest healthcare system

  • The last week has seen a 30-fold increase in calls from doctors requesting information and installation of teleconsultation services in the private sector.
  • With the aim of enabling patients not affected by COVID19 to continue with their health check-ups, Top Doctors offers the telemedicine service completely free of charge to any doctor, even if he or she is not a member of the platform.
  • A. Porciani: “In this type of situation, where cybercrime can grow, it is important that instant communication tools comply with national and international regulations on encryption and conservation of medical data”.

Barcelona, March 17, 2020.- Top Doctors, an expert company in technological services such as teleconsultation for the private medical sector, announces today that it will contribute to help the healthcare system by making its telemedicine services for doctors available to all medical professionals, both in its network of specialists and to anyone who needs them throughout Spain, at no cost, which will be assumed by the company. The company has taken this decision to contribute to the difficult situation being experienced by both the healthcare sector and patients who, in order not to congest hospitals and medical centers, are postponing their health check-ups.

Following the announcement of this measure among the platform’s physicians, the company has experienced an increase in requests from medical professionals calling seeking information and wanting to set up teleconsultation services to be able to attend to their regular patients. “In the last three days alone we have received the same requests that we would normally receive in a month,” explains Alberto Porciani. “Private healthcare has made itself available to the needs that are now prevailing in the system as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. But even so, they still have to attend to their regular clients. Less urgent appointments are being cancelled, both by the doctors and the patients themselves, but there are certain cases that cannot go without diagnosis, follow-up or treatment”.

This is why the demand for Top Doctors’ teleconsultation services has increased 30-fold in recent weeks, as he announced last week. According to its data, the same is happening in Italy and the United Kingdom, two of the 8 countries in which Top Doctors is also present.

In this way, Top Doctors announces today that any medical professional in the health system who needs its telemedicine services as an alternative to their face-to-face consultations will be able to use it without having to pay the cost of the service for the next two months, expenses that will be borne by the company. This includes chat and videoconferencing systems, as well as 24*7*365 online appointments. Doctors will be free to choose the price of telemedicine for the patient. In addition, “we are working and contacting all the insurance companies in Spain so that they can include telemedicine in their services and support their policyholders with the medical teleconsultation service through Top Doctors”, adds Porciani. The company does not rule out extending this free period if the crisis continues. It is currently the only company offering telemedicine services for all medical specialties.

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“For us, it has a structural and operational cost, such as the four-fold increase in server capacity to meet the demand and the costs related to the transaction charges, as well as the equipment for the teleconsultation service facilities, which is what we are putting at the service of doctors so that they can make use of it in this time of need. We believe that it is important to stop this health crisis that all the big players who can do so contribute in some way. We sincerely believe that we can be of great help to the medical professionals who are working so hard to contain this problem while still responding to all the patients who need it.”

Regulated telemedicine services versus the massive use of chat rooms and other types of mass instantaneous communication tools

Faced with the impossibility of accessing regulated telemedicine services, many professionals resort to instant communication tools that are not suitable for the processing of medical data and that do not comply with the relevant regulations. “It is very important that, in this type of crisis situation, where the difficulty of maintaining security may increase, where cases of fraud and attempts at access by cybercriminals may also increase, the right tools are used, those that give patients guarantees that their information will be handled according to the encryption and data retention policies that apply nationally and internationally,” says Porciani.