Online Appointments

What is Online Physiotherapy?

Online Physiotherapy involves the use of a digital device (computer, tablet) or phone (mobile or landline) to provide the healthcare services you need.

During the Covid 19 pandemic, our healthcare services are under severe pressure. In order to adhere to social distancing measures, private physiotherapy clinics are closed. During this unprecedented time, online physiotherapy and telehealth can play an important role in easing pressure on our NHS.

Our physiotherapists are experienced first contact practitioners. They are therefore ideally placed to ease the pressure on our A&E departments and GP surgeries by assessing and triaging patients with musculoskeletal complaints such as low back pain, knee pain and many other conditions.

We can provide you with the help and advice you require during this period, allowing you to avoid any unnecessary trips to casualty or your GP surgery. If we feel you still require onward referral to the health service, we can still do this in line with current guidelines and our excellent relationships with many of our local GPs.

How does Online Physiotherapy work?

In most cases, online physiotherapy works exactly like face to face physiotherapy. During our consultations both voice and video are used allowing our physiotherapists to:

• Understand your problem and how it developed
• Discuss treatments you may have already tried and which have/ have not helped
• Assess the way you move
• Provide education and reassurance about how you can improve your issue
• Provide guidance on how you can modify exercise, activities and other lifestyle factors to help you improve your issue
• Provide you with a new or progress an existing home exercise program to help improve pain, or just to stay healthy and well

Who can benefit from an Online Physiotherapy consultation?

Our clinic philosophy has always emphasized a focus on active management (education and exercise) to ensure patients not only get better in the short term but continue to improve and manage their injuries in the long term. Considering this, the majority of the services we offer work very well online and in fact can be delivered with greater convenience using this method.

How does an online physiotherapy consultation work?

Our online consultations take place via a secure online platform. However, depending on your preference, we can consider other platforms (e.g. Skype, WhatsApp). You will need a device with microphone and camera enabled (computer, tablet, phone). Additionally, you should set up for the consultation somewhere quiet with good light and ensure you have good internet access.

If completing or progressing an exercise program you may like to set up in the room where you normally complete your exercises. We send all our online patients a guide of exactly what they need to do prior to their online consultation by email. Don’t worry if you feel your technology or IT skills may not be ready for an online healthcare appointment, our team will make it so easy for you that it can be done by anyone as long as they have access to a mobile device.

What will the consultation involve?

Prior to your consultation, we will send you a questionnaire to gather some background information to your condition. You will need to return this to us before your consultation.

A link to log into the Zoom video consultation will be sent before your session and you should aim to login 5 minutes prior to your appointment time. Your physiotherapist will log in when they are ready to begin. We will aim to let you know if your physio is running more than 5 minutes late.

Once you and your physiotherapist is connected, your consultation will involve a conversation about your condition, some assessment tests they will ask you to perform in front of the camera, discussion about best treatment plan or progressions, guidance with how you can modify exercise and activity or other lifestyle factors and subsequent provision of an exercise program including active instruction using the camera and/or video and image examples.

Any written information/education created by the physiotherapist created during the consultation will be emailed to you.

What is the fee?

The cost of online consultations follow our standard clinic fees. Our usual minimum consultation time is 40 minutes which allows your physiotherapist to truly understand your problem, spend time providing you with quality education and guidance on how you can manage it better and provide you with specific exercises. Cost of this session is £35.

In some circumstances, short telehealth consultations via phone call (e.g. 15 minutes) can be effective, and prices would be adjusted accordingly.

How do I make a payment?

We will email you a link to an electronic invoice which can be paid using a debit / credit card or we can also accept payment by BACs.

I have private medical insurance, does this cover me for online physiotherapy?

We always advise that you contact your private medical insurance in advance to clarify whether your policy covers online physiotherapy consultations.

PLEASE NOTE

Failure to attend an appointment without prior notice will result in a charge. If you fail to attend subsequent appointments, you may be removed from practice list and unable to book any further apointments. We also require 24hours notice for any cancellations; failure to provide this will also result in a charge.

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