Conversion of Appointments to Televisits in a Minimally Invasive Practice during the COVID-19 Pandemic

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine rate of conversion of in-person visits, scheduled before COVID-19 pandemic, to televisits in a minimally invasive gynecology surgery (MIGS) practice and identify factors that predict successful conversion. DESIGN: Retrospective review of appointments scheduled over a 11-week period between March 17th and May 29th, 2020, in the MIGS division of an academic obstetrics and gynecology department. During this period, the office was closed except for emergency visits due to the restrictions secondary to COVID-19. Successful conversion from in-person to televisits was defined as appointments rescheduled within 2 months of the initial in-person visit. SETTING: N/A. PATIENTS OR PARTICIPANTS: All patients scheduled for in-person visits during this time were included. Patients were excluded from the analysis if they were seen emergently in person or newly scheduled as a televisit. INTERVENTIONS: N/A. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Data extracted included age, race/ethnicity, primary language, insurance type, appointment type, reason for visit, and time to rescheduled visit. 132 patients were originally scheduled during 11 weeks. 32 (24.2%) appointments were newly scheduled televisits and 20 (15.2%) were emergent in-person visits, leaving 87 visits. 21 (24%) appointments were rescheduled as televisits; 14 (66.7%) via telephone and 7 (33.3)% of these as video. There were no significant differences between age, race, primary language. insurance type, appointment type and the reason seen between the converted and non-converted groups. Median time to rescheduled appointments was sooner in successful conversions (16 days (-7 to 73) versus 96 days (8-234), p<.001). CONCLUSION: Conversion to televisits was reasonable for a telemedicine naïve practice, despite having an overall low conversion rate to televisits. Utilizing telemedicine allowed patients to receive care sooner when compared to the non-converted group. The lack of difference in demographic/clinical factors between the two groups provides hope that technology can be utilized by diverse groups of MIGS patients.