A relatively new patient-provider visit option grew in popularity as COVID-19 spread across the region. Virtual visits allow patients to interact with their health care provider from the safety of their homes, away from the silent, invisible threat of the virus in the outside world. Blessing Health System providers have conducted hundreds of these high-tech visits each business day of the pandemic.

The virus also brought a medical tradition back into style: The house call. Tim Beth, DO, Family Medicine, Blessing Health System, has conducted several house calls with his older patients since the disease made its appearance in the region.

“Patients who have a harder time hearing and seeing may not experience the optimal benefit from a virtual visit,” Dr. Beth stated. 

To qualify for a house call, patients must meet the following criteria:

  • Be homebound or have transportation issues
  • At high risk for readmission to the hospital
  • Presumed COVID negative but immunocompromised with other health risk factors

So wearing scrubs, a mask and gloves to protect the patients and himself, Dr. Beth hit the streets to see several of his patients who meet the house call criteria and those patients appreciated it.

“They were happy not to get out,” he observed. “For some of them, it is quite challenging to get to the office anyway. So it made it much easier for them.”

There is benefit in a house call for the doctor, too.

“It was good to see them in their own home. You can see what their house is like, if there are any kind of concerns for falls and other kinds of obstacles they may encounter in the house,” Dr. Beth stated.

For one patient in particular, the doctor was able to help make some adjustments to improve their safety and their management health needs.

“The patient had been falling. That was primarily the reason I went there,” he said. “I was able to get her up and walk her around. I also was able to watch her check her own blood pressure to see if she did it correctly. And we made some adjustments on medications right there, so that was helpful and things not done as easily during a virtual visit.”

While the demands of a medical practice today make a return to house calls on a large scale impossible, and with virtual visits are here to stay, Dr. Beth and his fellow Blessing Physician Services providers stand ready to ring more doorbells if needed before COVID-19 loses its title of pandemic in the area.