Introducing Primary Care Telephone Visits: An Urban Safety-Net Community Clinic Experience

Background: Telephone consultation is widely used in primary care and can provide an effective and efficient alternative for the in-person visit. Gouverneur Health, a safety-net primary care practice in New York City serving a predominately immigrant population, evaluated the feasibility and physician and patient acceptability of a telephone visit initiative in 2015. Measures: Patient and physician surveys, and physician focus groups. Results: Though only 85 of 270 scheduled telephone visits (31%) were completed, 84% of patients reported being highly satisfied with their telephone visit. Half of physicians opted to participate in the pilot. Among participating physicians, all reported they were able to communicate adequately and safely care for patients over the telephone. Conclusions: Participating patients and physicians in a linguistically and culturally diverse urban safety-net primary care clinic were highly satisfied with the use of telephone visits, though completion of the visits was low. Lessons learned from this implementation can be used to expand access and provision of high-quality primary care to other vulnerable populations.