Blogs

Have you noticed that GoToWebinar increased their monthly fees?

GoToWebinar Pricing | GoToWebinar

They've gone up to $99 for 100 people and $499 for 1000 people per month!

From what I can see, this increase is only for new clients – and existing clients stay Grandfathered in…

Want to know how else to proceed if you're just starting out?

Here are alternative Webinar services that people use successfully:

1. Adobe Connect Pro -up to 100 participants for as little as US$45 per month.
2. Camtwist – Unsure
3. DimDim – 1000 attendees for $75 a month
4. HotConference.com – 5 rooms with 500 seats for just $59.99 a month
5. Ustream – Unsure

Hopefully, these are good alternatives for you. If you have other suggestions for our readers, please leave them in the comment box below.

Marlene

P.S. If you had an account and let it expire – I have no idea if you are affected!

Executive Director

Center for Online Counseling & Therapy

Tweet me at http://twitter.com/telehealth.net

The FCC, which delivers a national broadband strategy to Congress on March 17, issued a “National Broadband Plan: National Purposes Update” on Feb. 18 that highlights the need for broadband to support telehealth & telemedicine and offers a preview of other major goals.

The commission recommended that federal authorities expand reimbursement for telemedicine and other e-health care, conduct pilot projects, deliver a plan to Congress on how to advance telemedicine and health information technology, and clarify regulatory requirements, licensing and credentialing. MORE

Marlene

The Veterans Affairs Department is already a step ahead of the rest of the federal government in promoting telehealth, also called telemedicine. Now VA is jumping forward again by proposing to double its telehealth investment over two years.

VA’s home telehealth program cares for 35,000 patients and is the largest of its kind in the world. According to the department's plans, it would grow to $163 million in fiscal 2011, more than twice the $72 million spent in fiscal 2009. MORE

Marlene

WOW! For a glimpse into the immediate future and how mobile apps will soon permeate modern life in the US, have a look at this eye-popping video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEpNbdzWmWU

Marlene

The American Telemedicine Association issued the following news release this week:

Guidelines Approved for Delivery of Remote Mental Health Services

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) announced the availability
of formal practice guidelines for the use of videoconferencing for the
delivery of mental health services.

These guidelines are designed to form the standard of care for such
services and will be the basis for the development and practice of
uniform, effective, safe and sustainable telemental health practices.

They will serve as both an operational reference and an educational tool
to aid in providing appropriate care for patients.

The use of telemental health has been in existence for over 40 years.

It has been used successfully as a tool for treatment in diverse areas
such as post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), providing counseling
services in rural areas and offering health medication management for
institutionalized patients.

A number of payers and health services are starting to offer telemental
health service benefits and may soon adopt these guidelines as their
basis for coverage.

The internet has been an important source of information for individuals and families since it became widely available several decades ago. But it was the availability of broadband access to the internet which has been one of the most important developments in the ability of people to quickly search for and find information about their well-being.

In many cases just being able to read about issues which are affecting a person or a member of their family often brings an enormous sense of relief as they discover they are not alone.

I am the editor-in-chief of SelfHelpMagazine (www.SelfHelpMagazine.com) which has been described as “The Internet's most trusted self-help & psychology portal.” In the days of dial-up access online magazines such as SelfHelpMagazine had to be almost entirely text-based with few (if any) graphic elements.

Anyone who remembers wading through a college text late at night understands how quickly the words seemed to dissolve into a sea of grey.

It seems like a small issue, but the ability to add graphic content to an online magazine helps the reader better understand what he or she is reading. It also allows them to keep their concentration longer so that the value the author was trying to impart to the reader has a far better chance of success.

I just received an email from another listserv today, and thought of the blog post I wrote here a while back. Here's the email I received and I'll comment more below:

~~

Thought I'd warn you of a thing that's apparently going around in Skype.

I had my Skype account hijacked, The hijacker changed my password and email
address that was associated with my account so I could not get into the
account again myself.

Then they placed phone calls and charged the credit card that's on file for
autobill with Skype.

It apparently started when I received a file attachment from a known
business contact that looked like an image file but wouldn't open after I
downloaded it.

Skype customer service helped me out with it, but it's a pain. Be careful
with attachments – even if they come from trusted sources! If you don't know
what is being sent, confirm via text message before downloading anything!

~~

I had the same thing happen to me with Chat rooms, where I would be in the room and receive messages from someone else who was posing as ME, teasing ME about SECURITY while I was talking to my world-wide programming staff.  That made me shy away from even thinking about using chat rooms with patients.

As a health care provider, I'm  concerned that so many large and small websites are now offering "ask-a-doctor" type services, and claiming that their practitioners are "licensed." I'm writing this blog to pose these questions:

Does their licensure signify that they are indeed competent and operating legally/ethically as many consumers would believe? Or does it simply mean that they are simply running ahead of the law, taking advantage of an overburdened legal system that cannot keep up with the rapid pace of technological advancement? Are they taking their chances because they know that licensing boards are severely overworked, sometimes employed by states that are financially strapped, and that consumers often need to file a significant number of complaints before even an informed licensing board can take action? Are they just trying to make a fast and much easier buck than in their face-to-face practices? Or is this just all one big misunderstanding? If it is a misunderstanding, whose job is it to know and disseminate the facts?

Wondering which professional association is at the forefront of our changing health care system? The American Telemedicine Association has been pivotal in the re-organization of US health care since the election of President Obama. It has educated members of Congress and Senate of the facts and figures related to the substantial savings documented for decades by research using a wide variety of healthcare technologies. The facts are undeniable and the benefits are creating a sea change of thinking in our legislators. This professional association is instrumental in helping our government officials understand that telemedicine is the future of medicine.

The American Telemedicine Association has a number of comprehensive special interest groups (SIGs) that include pediatrics, telemental health, technology, ocular health, teledermatology, nursing, telerehabilitation, home telehealth and remote monitoring as well as business and finance. In addition to the national group that there are regional chapters.

The Center for Online Counseling and Psychotherapy, a sister organization to the Telehealth.Net website,  has announced the opening of one of the world's first online professional training certification program. At a time when professionals seem to be eager to expand their options to serve clients and patients online, the need for qualified training has been largely unavailable or seriously limited online.  Although professional training has been conducted for more than 15 years, it has all too often been limited to small audiences at professional association meetings, rather than the worldwide Internet audience.

Concurrently, standard ethical requirements promulgated by most professional mental health associations point to the need for professionals venturing into new areas to undertake a relevant course of study prior to delivering services to consumers. This ethical mandate is illustrated by a excerpt from the 2002 APA Ethics Code, for which relevant sections have been highlighted below:

ETHICAL PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGISTS AND CODE OF CONDUCT (2002)

"2. Competence