FAQs
Got questions? We’ve got answers! At e-eyecare, we’ve assembled a collection of the most commonly asked questions we receive from patients and doctors interested in using our services, and have responded to your inquiries.
- What prompted the launch of e-eyecare?
Even though the world has moved forward, using the internet technology to assist us with our daily lives, we realized that ophthalmic care is lagging behind. This is surprising, given that most of our consultations could actually be done virtually, by simply looking at a patient’s results, provided by another eye care provider hundreds of kilometres away. This removes the barriers to care including financial issues, distances, paucity of specialists, and has a huge positive social impact.
This technology will not in any way eradicate the need for person-to-person consultation. In fact, the opposite is true, in that we will still need front line eye care providers to be present but gives them a more enhanced access to specialized and sub-specialized care. Our system basically provides a medium for the “meeting of the minds.”
- Will the patients be charged for this service?
No.
The Health Care services (e.g. Alberta Health Services) in the province where the patient resides will be charged for the services provided by the Consultant ophthalmologist, through our program. This is similar to the patient having visited the ophthalmologist at their office, except that with our system they are now being “visited” remotely. The patient will not bear any direct financial responsibility for the services provided.
- Who could start working with the company?
All optometrists/general medical practitioners and ophthalmologists, who are in good standing with the college/governing body of their jurisdiction will be eligible to apply to work with us. Please contact us through our website.
- Will I have the option of choosing who could review my patient's chart (I'm the referral doctor)?
Yes.
You will have the option of choosing a specific person amongst our Consultant ophthalmologists, or choose ‘any available ophthalmologist,’ which would send the chart to the first available Consultant for the fastest reply.
- What is the usual consultation reply time?
Our aim is to have the charts reviewed and completed by our Consultant ophthalmologists within three business days of the referral being made. If the Consultant ophthalmologist is not available for any reason, the chart will be sent back to the referral pool to be seen by the first available Consultant.
- Are there any fees associated with registration with the program (either as a referral or consultant practitioner)?
No.
How we pay for our expenses is that the Health Services jurisdiction of the patient’s place of residence will be charged for the services provided by the Consultant ophthalmologist. We will then distribute some of this fee to the Consultant eye care providers to compensate them for their time. e-eyecare Solutions will also take a very small part of this fee to pay for our ongoing costs related to IT services (both personnel and hardware), programmers and software designers, server data storage fees, ongoing costs related to our clerical and billing personnel, and printing promotional material related to the company, etc.