Dermatology Telephone Triage Risky, Guidelines For Safe Practice Offered

Main Category: Dermatology
Also Included In: Nursing / Midwifery
Article Date: 04 Mar 2009 - 0:00 PDT

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Telephone triage is an important piece of any medical practice, including dermatology. Risk is involved with these calls, as sometimes patients don't provide enough information or the person answering calls is unqualified. Telephone triage in a dermatology practice involves these same risks; however, it is unlike other specialty practices. Dermatology is a visual specialty, and diagnosing a lesion over the phone is next to impossible.

In the January-February 2009 issue of Dermatology Nursing,

Carolyn Buppert advises that dermatology practitioners not offer telephone triage. Instead, she recommends practices offer patients timely appointments, which means fitting patients into an already overcrowded schedule. While few dermatologic emergencies exist, patients also cannot wait months to be seen.

To alleviate the patient backlog, Buppert says some practices are hiring nurse practitioners and physician assistants, whose work is reimbursed by third-party payers, to take patient histories and perform exams and biopsies.

If practices cannot see patients quickly, Buppert says safe telephone triage is the way to go. In her column, Buppert offers 12 guidelines for safe care, including knowing "red flag" complaints, documenting calls, and following policies and protocols for who answers calls. Safe telephone triage will help determine which patients should be seen sooner rather than later.

"Guidelines for Telephone Triage" Carolyn Buppert, JD, CRNP
Dermatology Nursing; January-February 2009
http://www.dermatologynursing.net

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