Frequently Asked Questions

For Specialists

Independent specialist groups benefit from VideoConsults by gaining access to a broader patient and hospital network without the overhead of setting up multiple clinic locations.

The platform allows them to provide consults virtually to hospitals, urgent care centers, and other healthcare facilities that need their expertise, creating new revenue streams from both direct patient consults (follow-ups) and provider-to-provider consults.

Structured intake, integrated diagnostics, and imaging give the group full clinical visibility for each consult, improving the quality and efficiency of care. Additionally, independent groups can manage their schedule flexibly, participating in on-demand or on-call coverage as preferred, which allows them to expand their practice, increase their caseload, and enhance their reputation across multiple hospitals and regions while minimizing administrative burdens.

For Institutions

Yes, VideoConsults can absolutely be used as an internal fabric across your hospital system. This means one location can directly tap into the specialists at another location through the platform. For example, if a smaller facility doesn’t have neurology coverage, they can route a consult request to your neurologist sitting at a larger hospital within your own system.

The benefit of this model is that it allows you to maximize the use of your own specialists first before looking outside the network. It reduces unnecessary patient transfers, since smaller hospitals can access expertise remotely and only transfer patients when it’s truly needed. It also strengthens cohesion across your system by creating a unified specialty coverage network, where all hospitals operate on the same structured intake and diagnostic workflow. This improves efficiency and reduces costs, since you don’t have to maintain duplicate on-call contracts at every site while still ensuring reliable coverage across the system

VideoConsults reduces costs and increases revenue for hospitals by optimizing how specialty consults are delivered. By giving hospitals access to specialists remotely, they can avoid unnecessary patient transfers, which are expensive and time-consuming.

Hospitals also save on staffing costs because they don’t need to maintain full on-call coverage at every location—VideoConsults provides coverage on-demand or through on-call arrangements at a fraction of the cost.

At the same time, hospitals can increase revenue by reducing delays in specialty care, improving patient throughput, and retaining patients within their system instead of losing them to outside facilities. Structured intake, integrated diagnostics, and faster consults also improve clinical efficiency, which allows hospitals to handle more cases and bill appropriately for higher-acuity care.

No, using VideoConsults is designed to fit seamlessly into existing hospital workflows. Hospitals submit consult requests through the platform in the same way they would today, whether by paging a specialist or requesting a consult through their EMR. The platform standardizes intake, diagnostics, and imaging, so specialists receive all the relevant information without requiring additional steps from hospital staff. Billing is handled through our MSO, which means hospital staff don’t need to manage new invoicing or claims processes. Overall, the platform enhances consult efficiency and access without disrupting day-to-day operations.

VideoConsults offers flexible pricing options to meet the needs of different hospitals. Hospitals can choose a no-subscription model, a subscription with discounted billing for on-demand consults, or a subscription combined with on-call coverage. Our MSO bills the hospital directly for the consults, while the hospital handles any payer billing themselves. Devices are leased based on the service lines or specialties the hospital subscribes to. The pricing is designed to be economical and scalable, delivering strong ROI for hospitals of all sizes while ensuring access to high-quality specialty care.

Yes, you absolutely can justify the ROI for your leadership team. You can see a detailed calculation using our ROI calculator at vc.healthocta.com/roi. More importantly, implementing VideoConsults delivers direct ROI by reducing unnecessary transfers and improving specialty coverage. It also produces indirect ROI through preserving downstream revenue from procedures, labs, and follow-up care, as well as strengthening community confidence and trust in your hospital system.

No, VideoConsults is not limited to ERs and hospital systems. The platform can benefit a wide range of healthcare entities, including urgent care centers, micro-hospitals, specialty clinics, assisted living facilities (ALFs), skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), long-term care facilities (LTCs), prison systems, tribal health programs, and other organizations that need access to on-demand or on-call specialty expertise. By providing structured intake, integrated diagnostics, and real-time consults, VideoConsults helps these organizations improve patient care, make faster clinical decisions, and reduce unnecessary transfers, while giving providers a seamless way to extend their specialty reach. You can see the full list of care settings we support at vc.healthocta.com/about-us.

Yes, VideoConsults allows hospitals to route consults internally within their own network. One location can easily request a consult from specialists at another site, ensuring that in-house expertise is maximized before seeking external providers. This reduces unnecessary patient transfers, improves efficiency, and allows specialists to provide timely, informed care across multiple locations using structured intake, diagnostics, and integrated imaging, all without disrupting workflow.

The response time for urgent or emergent consults depends on the contract and service level agreement your organization sets up. VideoConsults is designed to support flexible, multi-tiered workflows that can be tailored to your needs, ensuring prompt specialty coverage while optimizing costs and resource utilization.

VideoConsults can cover a broad range of specialties, including those needed for on-call and trauma-level requirements. Our platform supports sub-specialties such as cardiology, neurology, infectious disease, pulmonology, dermatology, ophthalmology, and more. Hospitals can use our vetted specialists or integrate their own in-house or affiliated providers. This allows hospitals to meet certification standards and ensure 24×7 coverage while leveraging both on-demand and on-call consult models.

VideoConsults ensures all tele-consults are secure, structured, and documented. Specialist providers are covered under their existing malpractice policy, which typically extends to tele-consults and provider-to-provider advice. VideoConsults ensures all consults are documented, secure, and compliant to support that coverage.

VideoConsults secures all patient data and consult records using industry-standard encryption both in transit and at rest. Access to the platform is controlled through secure logins and role-based permissions, ensuring that only authorized providers and hospital staff can view sensitive information. All consult documentation, diagnostic data, and imaging are stored within a HIPAA-compliant environment, providing audit trails and maintaining privacy while supporting seamless clinical workflows.

VideoConsults vets all specialists before they join the platform, verifying licensure, board certifications, and training. However, each hospital is responsible for credentialing the specialists before they can provide consults for that hospital. This ensures that hospitals maintain control over quality and compliance while still benefiting from the vetted pool of providers on the platform.

Yes, VideoConsults provides services to track consult outcomes and measure effectiveness. Hospitals can access analytics on consult data, including turnaround times, case volumes, specialty utilization, and clinical outcomes. This allows hospitals to monitor quality, identify areas for improvement, and demonstrate the value of the platform in enhancing patient care and operational efficiency.

Some specialties, such as ophthalmology, dermatology, and cardiology, require specialized clinical-grade smart devices to capture the necessary diagnostic data. HealthOcta has integrations with best-of-breed device manufacturers, and as part of a VideoConsults subscription, healthcare organizations can lease these devices directly through HealthOcta. Many other specialties do not require specialized devices; in those cases, simply subscribing to the service line and having credentialed specialists on the platform is sufficient to start providing consults.

Devices that you procure as part of your subscription come with an advanced replacement technical support contract. The VideoConsults platform itself includes access to a customer support helpline for general assistance. In addition, premium and advanced technical support options are available for organizations that need faster response times or more hands-on support.

HealthOcta has relationships with specialist groups that provide their services on the VideoConsults platform. In addition, hospitals are welcome to subscribe to a service line and have us set up the platform to route consults to specialists they already have on staff or to specialist groups with whom they have pre-existing relationships. This ensures flexibility while leveraging the platform’s workflow, structured intake, and integrated diagnostics.

VideoConsults provides flexible scheduling tools that allow hospitals to manage consults across multiple specialists and locations. The platform can be configured to match your hospital’s workflows, whether for on-demand coverage, scheduled consults, or multi-tiered on-call arrangements. Requests can be routed according to availability, specialty, and location, ensuring timely responses while optimizing specialist utilization. This centralized scheduling system helps hospitals coordinate coverage efficiently across their network without creating extra administrative burden.

Yes, VideoConsults is designed to scale across multiple hospitals, care facilities, and service lines. The platform can manage consults, specialists, and devices across locations, allowing centralized oversight while maintaining flexibility for each facility. This ensures consistent workflows, standardized intake, and efficient specialty coverage across an entire health system.

Yes, VideoConsults can integrate with your existing EMR or other hospital IT systems. Integration is part of our customization services and is billed separately. All consult notes are audit-logged within our system and can be downloaded by your staff, then easily added to the EHR to document the interaction.

Yes, VideoConsults allows hospitals to standardize consult intake forms across departments and service lines. The platform supports structured intake templates that can be customized for each specialty, ensuring that specialists receive consistent, complete, and relevant information for every consult. This standardization improves clinical efficiency, reduces errors, and helps maintain high-quality care across all locations and service lines.

Yes, VideoConsults is highly configurable and allows hospitals to set preferences for asynchronous or synchronous consults based on specialty, clinical urgency, or workflow needs. This flexibility ensures that each service line can operate in the most efficient and effective way for both providers and patients.

The Basics

Yes, By leveraging the VideoConsults platform, a large hospital can function as a telemedicine hub, providing specialty consults to regional hospitals, urgent care centers, and micro-hospitals within its network. Each participating facility holds a platform license, allowing doctors across sites to collaborate seamlessly. This approach reduces unnecessary patient transfers, ensures timely access to specialty expertise, and elevates the overall quality of care across the system.