Boston, MA – With the current COVID-19 crisis many physicians are turning to telemedicine to offer continuity of care to their patients. One female, primary care physician has found that her approach to telemedicine has improved her practice in an unexpected way. Dr. Tish McGee discovered that adding Snapchat filters in her telemedicine visits has increased overall patient satisfaction and had a surprising benefit to her clinical workflow at a time when many practices are struggling due to the constraints of social distancing.
“I was trying to lighten things up during a telemedicine visit, because laughter is the best medicine, and at this point laughter is the medicine equivalent of homemade PPE – why not?” She began by adding a filter that included a top hat, monocle and pipe, but her patient seemed confused. “Immediately, he began addressing me as Dr. instead of Ms., didn’t call me ‘hun’ once during the appointment and told me he wasn’t sure why but this was the best visit with me he ever had.” It was then she realized her filter was causing the patient to treat her like a male physician.
Dr. McGee now routinely employs snapchat filters during her visits. “With the top hat and monocle, my patients see me as a fancy, man-doctor. I don’t have to repeat myself, no one questions my advice and they call me doctor – it’s great.”
The filter has helped with new patient visits as well. “Usually a patient will ask ‘When is the doctor going to see me?’ after I’ve already introduced myself as a doctor and conducted the exam. But now, they just know that I’m the doctor because of the monocle and hat.” Her Press Ganey scores have seen a recent uptick with comments such as “The doctor was great! I knew I was in good hands, my health care concerns were addressed efficiently, and you could just tell that she had good spatial reasoning.”
