Telehealth Addiction Treatment Marketing
Many addiction treatment centers have found themselves in a new world representing new challenges in the age of COVID-19. Residential facilities and PHP providers find themselves in lockdown mode and finding it difficult to bring in new patients with OP & IOP centers running thin due to social distancing requirements and mandates.
There are some short-term challenges for rehab centers, but now may be the time to adapt new techniques to continue to provide drug and alcohol rehab to those in need. One of those options is telehealth addiction treatment.
Do you know what Telehealth is? Telehealth Addiction Treatment Marketing is a new way to market addiction treatment services that combines the best of both worlds. Telehealth marketing services are designed to help people who live in rural areas or who have limited access to doctors and other healthcare providers. This blog post will discuss how telehealth addiction treatment marketing can help your business succeed despite these challenges.
Digital Tools to Support Recovery
Telehealth services for addiction treatment isn’t a new concept by any means, but it’s a foreign concept to traditional rehab centers that have never utilized remote treatment of patients via video conferencing. We have a strong feeling that may change in the not too distant future.
As with traditional treatment, substance abuse treatment centers need to understand there are HIPAA regulations regarding remote treatment. So before you jump in and start doing treatment on demand, make sure you choose compliant tools first.
The first and most important benefit of telehealth marketing is that it can help addiction treatment centers to comply with HIPAA regulations. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was passed in 1996 as a way to protect the privacy of patients’ health information. The law requires that any company or organization that collects, stores, or transmits protected health information must do so in a way that ensures the confidentiality of the data. Telehealth services are an excellent way to comply with these regulations since all patient data is transmitted electronically and there is no need for patients to travel to a treatment center to receive the help that they need.
Lead to Recovery took some time to evaluate several tools that are HIPAA compliant for video communication and file exchanging and appear to be excellent platforms for rehab centers to utilize for telehealth therapy.
Here are two of them we feel are worth consideration:
- Zoom Health. Zoom is a newer tool to the scene, but it’s one of the fastest-growing virtual meeting platforms online today. Zoom accommodates 1-1 meetings and group therapy session options and has recording capabilities among other bells and whistles. We like that they’ve built a platform specifically for telehealth which is ideal for rehab centers. Zoom Telehealth subscriptions start at $200/month.
- VSee. VSee is a more established platform that appears to be utilized by many recognizable healthcare organizations including Cleveland Clinic, Walgreens, and Trinity Health. Unlike Zoom which appears to be limited to video conferencing alone, VSee has a breadth of additional goodies for healthcare providers to use including waiting room, intake, walk-in alerts, website integration of their tools, etc. VSee even offers telemedicine kits, home care kits, telemedicine carts for patients to use physically and treatment providers to monitor and provide remote treatment. Vsee subscriptions start at $49/month.
If you’re operating a center and decide to embrace telehealth/telemedicine, please be sure to build a new page on your site alerting people to this new treatment option. It also makes sense to have language and call-outs throughout your site as well, especially the homepage.
In addition to regular content updates on the site alerting people to telehealth treatment, make sure you update your social profiles and we STRONGLY consider doing some social media advertising on Facebook and Instagram in particular. LinkedIn may be another avenue to pursue as well if your center is active there. Running standard Google Ads with telehealth messaging is also a good idea to fully canvas online. We’re here to help, so don’t hesitate to reach out.
For alumni and ongoing client touchpoints, a simple email bringing them up to speed with your new telehealth option should suffice.
Is telehealth effective in treating addiction?
n the wake of a recent pandemic, it was imperative that we found new ways for patients to receive care. Telehealth services have been shown in one study by COVID-19 researchers as an effective way not only increase patient engagement but also decrease costly hospitalizations from substance abuse disorders and provide more tailored treatment plans than traditional face-to-face or remote clinic visits can offer alone without compromising quality standards because doctors are able to monitor progress remotely.
The study, conducted by researchers from RTI International and the University of California, Los Angeles reviewed strategies for substance use disorders therapy and their associated social and psychological costs as the main outcomes. Telemedicine may contribute to better patient satisfaction than in the absence of physical or psychological barriers in providing the needed medical treatment for illness. Other common features were improved health quality and lower commuting time for patients. A strategy for improving medically supported drug treatment is an important step. Three research trials on buprenorphine were able to demonstrate efficacy for prescribing benzylcholine.
Marketing Telehealth and Telemedicine in Addiction Treatment
We know there are serious challenges facing addiction rehab centers across the globe with the COVID-19 virus and how it’s having a negative impact on providing potential patients with much needed care. If centers are unable to do in-person treatment for new patients, our hope is they’ll look to virtual treatment as an alternative, even if it’s only for an interim period of time.
Our telehealth addiction treatment marketing services are designed to help you get your business in front of more potential clients. By using our expertise and the latest innovations, we can create a plan that will streamline your lead generation and conversion rates. Whether it’s traditional SEO or content marketing strategies like blogging, social media management or paid ad campaigns, we have everything you need for successful digital marketing. Contact us today to learn how we can be your partner for success!
Reviewed by:
Matthew Travers
Rehab Marketing Expert
