Communicating with patients by live video has a method used by health care professionals since 1969. However, until recently, the expense and technical difficulties relegated these types of services to military, corporate, or State supported offerings. With the introduction of video chat services on mobile phones and inexpensive high quality web-cams available on the market, more physicians are offering the option to patients to meet virtually instead of coming to the office for those clinical situations where it is appropriate to do so.

At White Phoenix Medical, communication with you is one of our top priorities and we offer several ways to visit with Dr. Fuentes-Valdes. Learn more about telemedicine and other options below. Of course you can always just call the office directly or use the live chat option on the website.

Telemedicine with live video chat

For those not familiar with the use of video chat in healthcare, here are a few videos that we think explain it pretty well.

Communication apps and Options

To participate in a video conference with your doctor, you would need to have a video chat software solution and equipment. This might be as simple as your iPhone, iPad, or Android device. Although mobile devices are great, your experience will be better on a desktop system. You can easily add video capability with a USB web-camera which also typically have a microphone as part of the camera. We're happy to show you our set up in the office and we can show you how a video chat system works during one of your visits. Simply schedule a free demo session with your next visit.

NOTE: Depending on your insurance coverage plan they may or may not have included coverage for telemedicine visits in the language of your contract. Unless you are paying out of pocket or with an HSA card, we are happy to help ask the question of your insurance carrier about reimbursement for virtual visits.

Our standard video chat tool is called Zoom although we are able to use many others if needed. Zoom just happens to be a secure HIPAA compliant solution that is very simple to use. If you schedule a video visit with the doctor, we will send you a link via e-mail to join the session from. We can certainly do a test visit before if you would like to make sure it is working correctly. You can download Zoom for yourself to use at ​https://zoom.us/

While Facebook itself is all about helping folks share data, health care is about protecting your privacy and data. To that end, Facebook has done a really good job about privacy and security with their new Messenger solution at ​https://www.messenger.com/.  We don't quite recommend using Messenger to discuss your clinical condition but for getting in touch with the office or Dr. Fuentes-Valdes for general questions, making appointments, paying your bill,  and portal issues, Messenger is a really useful secure solution. You can get to Messenger directly through the link above or by going to Dr. Fuentes-Valdes's Facebook page and linking there. If you want to use Messenger completely separate from Facebook (our recommendation) you can create a Messenger account with just your e-mail and phone number. You can then connect with the office by putting the office number 801-341-9055 into Messenger

Facetime is a highly secure end-to-end encrypted video and audio chat solution that works very well for those with iPhones or other Apple products. We like Facetime for its security and quality although we prefer doing it from a desktop Mac or laptop. Facetime doesn't have the features of Messenger for seamless transition to text only or audio only nor does it have the location or payment options but for live video chat it is about as good as it gets on Apple devices. 

OnPatient (​https://onpatient.com) is another great way to send the office HIPAA compliant messages, texts, and video. It currently doesn't have a live video chat option but you can use it to view your labs, clinic notes, and other information. There are mobile apps available for iPad and iPhone but we've found that the website designed for the desktop is still the most easy to navigate and use.