The explosion of the omicron and the flu overwhelmed the telemedicine system. Companies specializing in remote care report increased waiting hours, recruiting additional doctors and reduced consultation time to speed up the queue.
According to the Telemedicine Portal, which connects doctors to clinics to offer online consultations, in general, the waiting time for care is now double compared to the height of the pandemic, as well as the volume of demand. Rafael Figueroa, executive director of the company, says that the large health networks that operate on the platform have queues of up to eight hours for service.
The portal says that it increased its team of doctors at the beginning of the year to be able to keep the queue time between five and 15 minutes. To meet the sudden demand, consultations, which last an average of 20 minutes, were reduced to around 12 minutes in cases of Influenza.
According to broker 3 SEG, users of the health plans that the company serves have reported waiting time between 4 and 6 hours in remote service and in emergency rooms. To try to avoid a greater overload in the situation, which has worsened since Christmas week and reached a new peak this Friday (7), the company says it has issued alerts and information to customers to update them.
Grupo Conexa, another company in the field, says that it has also reinforced the recruitment of doctors to handle the volume of visits, which has quadrupled in recent weeks. Only this Thursday (6), there were 17,263 calls, about 50% above the peak day of the previous week.
According to Qsaúde, in December, the search for telemedicine care for flu symptoms, which is now reaching new highs, had already grown 13 times over the previous month.
Abramge, an association that brings together health plan operators, says it has received reports of increased waiting time for teleconsultations. The entity assesses that the surge in demand has been much greater than the capacity to expand the service system.
with Andressa Motter e Ana Paula Branco
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I have over 8 years of experience in the news industry. I have worked for various news websites and have also written for a few news agencies. I mostly cover healthcare news, but I am also interested in other topics such as politics, business, and entertainment. In my free time, I enjoy writing fiction and spending time with my family and friends.
