Memorial Now Providing Treatment of Ailments Without a Patient Leaving Home

By Jeremy Coumbes on November 18, 2019 at 1:27pm

Memorial Health services has rolled out a new feature to their online and mobile app service that can allow you to be diagnosed and treated for ailments without leaving your home.

MemorialNow is a new service being offered that allows patients to receive medical care when they have a non-emergency illness. The care can be accessed without the need to visit the doctor’s office, urgent care facility or emergency room.

The virtual care service is staffed by nurse practitioners that work for Memorial Physician Services who can consult with patients online and treat acute illnesses .

Gina White, a clinic manager with Memorial Physicians Services says that patients are still getting used to the idea of seeing a doctor online, however it could be an especially convenient service as winter moves in.

A large portion of patents are starting to learn about the virtual access, it is a relatively new concept. We want patients to realize that they may not need to see their doctor if the weather is bad, or their primary care provider’s clinic is full that day and they can’t get in, but they have a cold or a cough or the flu or strep throat, things like that. Then they can actually log onto MemorialNow and be “seen” by a clinician and have that treated if needed.”

White said that the service is user friendly and all a patient needs to do is have an online profile in the system to get going.

After they have created the profile, they will enter as many as three symptoms, and dependent on the symptoms they enter, then they are asked a series of questions to help differentiate diagnosis. The patient can enter all of their demographic information, and all of their bio-metrics, such as their weight and height, their exercise habits. They enter their physician, any allergies they may have, any medications they may take, anything that helps the clinician establish their diagnosis and treatment plan

Patients have the option to send us pictures, so if it is for a rash, or pink eye or something of that caliber. They also have the option of free texting information so maybe they wanted to let the clinician know that the patient was not asked. So they can free text that and then they submit the visit to the clinician.”

Patients can still choose their own pharmacies. White said all the patient needs to do is enter the zip code of the pharmacy they wish to use, and a list of the pharmacy’s in the area will appear in the app for easy selection.

White said the service is great for parents too for help diagnosing common ailments such as strep throat.

The C.D.C. Does require that there is a positive strep test result before we treat, so what we do in that scenario is we have the capability of ordering tests, and because we are in the Jacksonville area, we usually offer the patients the option of coming directly to Passavant to get a swab done, then once we get the test results back we finish the visit and treat if needed.

We do have the option of treating the patient virtually, and if we feel that the patient should be treated personally, then we also give them the nest advice of which location to go to, which location would take care of their needs above another selection.

It is $40.00 for the online visit if we treat you. But if we think there is something from the visit that we think needs to be seen by a healthcare professional in person, then there is no charge for that visit.”

The virtual care appointment service is available now through the Memorial app or website and is free of charge to download or access. White said that setting up the online profile takes on average about eight minutes. Patients can access the virtual care at memorialnow.com and the app is available in both Google Play and the App Store.