How to Use Doxy.me: 10 Tips for Better Telemedicine Sessions
Telemedicine software enables health and wellness professionals to host appointments online. The best software solutions include patient waiting rooms, HIPAA compliant video conferencing, patient communication tools, and payment processing.
Market leader Doxy.me has all of these features and more. The tips below will help you get the most out of Doxy.me, and make your telemedicine effort a success. For a complete overview of the Doxy.me product, read SoftwarePundit's Doxy.me review.
Table of Contents
- 10 Tips for Doxy.me Telemedicine Sessions
- Explain How Doxy.me Works to Your Patients
- Make Your Room Name Easy to Remember
- Share Your Waiting Room Link Before Each Appointment
- Use The Waiting Room Timer to Stay on Schedule
- Optimize Your WiFi Setup
- Ensure the Patient Also Has Strong WiFi
- Close Other Applications During Appointments
- Use Doxy.me's Pre Call Test to Identify Issues
- Use Headphones
- Restart Calls That Become Choppy
10 Tips for Doxy.me Telemedicine Sessions
We spoke with real Doxy.me customers to get their top tips on how to use the software. In particular, how to ensure successful patient adoption of telemedicine and consistent telemeeting quality. Their recommendations are listed below, along with screenshots of the actual Doxy.me product.
Explain How Doxy.me Works to Your Patients
Melissa Wesner, LCPC from LifeSpring Counseling Services reinforced the importance of providing the patient with instructions prior to using the platform to alleviate any anxiety or concerns about using a new platform. This will allow you to answer patient questions about telemedicine and Doxy.me, and streamline your organization's adoption of virtual meetings.
Overall, Doxy.me is very simple for patients to use – they don't need to create an account or download any software. All they have to do is click on your room link and check into the appointment. Doxy.me has designed a flyer that you can use to help your patients understand how to use Doxy.me.
Make Your Room Name Easy to Remember
Dr. Jared Heathman from Your Family Psychiatrist suggests customizing your room name so it's easy for patients to remember. This is because your room name is also the URL that patients have to type in to join their appointments.
You can use Doxy.me's room settings to change your room name. We recommend keeping the name short, and using your name or your organization's name.
Share Your Waiting Room Link Before Each Appointment
Dr. Holly Sawyer from Life First Therapy recommends sending your waiting room link out at least one hour before each session. This serves as a friendly reminder about the upcoming appointment, and prevents patients from endlessly searching their computers for the link. Dr. Sawyer also recommends that you encourage patients to save the link for later use.
Fortunately, Doxy.me makes it easy to share your waiting room link. The tool pictured below is located on the main dashboard. You can copy the waiting room URL, share it via email and text message, and post it as a button on your website.
Use The Waiting Room Timer to Stay on Schedule
Dr. Heathman shared a productivity tip that helps his team stay on schedule. "Doxy.me has an excellent waiting room feature that allows you to easily transition from one patient to the next," he says. "It also provides a counter that keeps track of how long patients have been waiting. This can help you with who you should see next and be a reminder that your current session needs to wrap up soon."
Optimize Your WiFi Setup
To improve call quality, Doxy.me recommends optimizing your WiFi network setup. Specific recommendations from Doxy.me include:
- Move closer to your WiFi router, and switch to the 5GHz frequency. This will increase the maximum amount of bandwidth available to your device over a shorter distance.
- Use an ethernet cable connecting your computer to the router. This will provide the most stable connection possible. Both participants will need at least 750kbps to connect on a video call, and we recommend 2mbps for a more stable session.
- Turn off other devices on the same WiFi connection are using high bandwidth activities (e.g. Netflix, Youtube, Skype, FaceTime).
- Ensure your router isn't physically obstructed or out of view. Keep it in the open, and the signal will be stronger.
Ensure the Patient Also Has Strong WiFi
Dr. Sawyer also noted the importance of a strong WiFi connection for both the provider and the patient. Doxy.me is a peer-to-peer video system, which means you connect directly to the patient's system, and vice-versa.
"Something like a coffee house or public WiFi is not recommended," Dr. Sawyer said. "If the connection is spotty, the session can drop easily, become frozen or end altogether without being able to get back into the session for a while, if at all."
Close Other Applications During Appointments
To unlock the most bandwidth for Doxy.me, it's best to close other applications during appointments. "Close out unnecessary browsers on your computer to allow for better connection & speed, and to minimize distractions during the appointment," Wesner recommended.
In addition to closing other applications, you can use your computer's software to turn off distracting application notifications. Windows users can mute notifications using the Focus Assist feature. Mac users can install a free app called Muzzle to mute application notifications.
Use Doxy.me's Pre-call Test to Identify Issues
Doxy.me has a pre-call test feature that allows you to identify any issues that could prevent a high quality telemeeting. The test takes less than one minute and checks your hardware setup, connectivity to the OpenTok servers, and audio & video quality. Wesner recommends running the test before every appointment.
In addition, patients also have access to the pre-call test feature. Patients can run the test while in your waiting room and fix any issues prior to the appointment starting.
Use Headphones
"Use headphones to help cancel out any noise," Dr. Sawyer recommended. "Ask that your clients use headphones as well and are in quiet rooms where they are not distracted or around a lot of noise. Sessions done from within their cars are not recommended."
We recommend including a note about headphones in your appointment confirmation email and again when you send your pre-appointment reminder to patients. This will increase the percentage of patients who bring headphones to appointments, and reduce wasted time at the beginning of appointments.
Restart Calls That Become Choppy
If you've taken the precautions above, you will have very few low-quality telehealth sessions. However, once in a while your calls will be choppy. When this happens during a call, you can use Doxy.me's restart call feature. To navigate to this feature, you open call settings and select "Restart call to sync video."