Recognize that your Telehealth Champion is the primary advocate for your program and that success depends upon the full support of the wider organization—do what is necessary to ensure the Telehealth Champion and other advocates succeed.
After conducting a self-assessment and identifying the types of client services and interactions you want your practice to offer, your next big challenge is choosing the appropriate technology. There is no one-size-fits-all option, but there are choices that will work for you.
Are clients really willing to pay? Which services would I charge for and how much for each service? Who bills and who collects, and what about security? What if I find on an initial assessment that my patient needs to be seen in person? So many questions—all with relatively straightforward answers.
Many people see telehealth solely as a live audio or video service, but conducting remote consultations is actually only a very small part of what telehealth is about. Instead, provision of telehealth services is most successful when it is focused on easing communication bottlenecks, improving clients’ access to care and information, and capturing revenue usually given away for free.
Practitioners can develop individualized vaccination protocols consisting of core vaccines (rabies virus, feline herpesvirus type 1 [FHV-1], feline calicivirus [FCV], and feline panleukopenia virus [FPV]) and non-core vaccines based on exposure and susceptibility risk as defined by the patient’s life stage, lifestyle, and place of origin as well as by environmental and epidemiologic factors.
Senior cats exhibiting new or unusual behavior should be evaluated for medical conditions.
Litter boxes should be provided in different locations that are easily accessible throughout the house to the extent possible, particularly in multicat households. The rule of thumb is one litter box for each cat plus one additional box, or one litter box for each social group plus one additional box, if the number of social groups is known.
If cats at any life stage present with lower urinary tract signs, the practitioner must obtain a definitive history to differentiate various underlying causes for the signs.
