How to Book a Telepsychiatry Appointment?
Telepsychiatry, a subset of telemedicine, provides psychiatric examinations, counseling, patient education, and medication management, allowing patients to get mental health care from the comfort of their own homes. If you are looking for mental health support without the need to travel, our experienced psychiatric nurse practitioner, Norrine McNelley, PMHNP-BC at Advanced Psych Care, offers telepsychiatry. For more information, contact us or schedule an appointment online. We serve patients from Salem, NH and surrounding areas.


Table Of Contents:
How do I set up an appointment for telepsychiatry?
How can a telepsychiatrist see your medical history?
What happens at a telepsychiatry appointment?
To set up an appointment with Advanced Psych Care, visit our appointments page. If you are a new patient, we ask you to fill out the new patient questionnaire first before scheduling an appointment. This questionnaire can be found on our appointments page.
To schedule an appointment, click on the “Telepsychiatry” button on the services list, click the date which would work best for you, and the time on that specific date that works.
Provide us with all of your details so we can effectively book the appointment and send you the confirmation and follow-up information in regards to the appointment you have booked with us. You may receive an email about your appointment, please check the spam or junk folder if you have not received an email within 24 hours before your appointment.
A psychiatrist will want to review their client(s) treatment records as they can contain important information that is critical to the risk assessment they will need to conduct. What a psychiatrist will do, whether they are in person at a clinic, or like ours through a video conference, is they will request the client(s) records from their previous clinicians. this request is called an ROI which means a request for information. Whether the past psychiatrist will provide the requested information or not will depend on the present psychiatrist’s next steps.
A client(s) previous records may contain vital mental health treatments with information that is important to the psychiatrist. This helps to reduce the risk of errors that can arise from poor recall or inaccurate reporting by the client(s).
Treatment records are vital in understanding what the client(s) have gone through previously from substance abuse, suicide attempts, civil commitment, violent behavior, hospitalizations, etc. All of which the client may not want to readily disclose to their new psychiatrist, but would help the psychiatrist immensely, as they can better understand the client(s) without having to bring up past issues that may be hard for the client to remember or go through again.
Charts from previous hospitalizations can provide critical background information about the client(s) that can provide how the client(s) may have responded to certain treatment options, any adverse reactions or medications or other treatments, and relevant medical and psychological history.
If the psychiatrist is within the same clinic as the client(s) previous psychiatrist, it makes the transition of previous information a lot easier and more readily available for them to review and access to help guide their client(s) in the proper direction, and provide treatment(s).
Telepsychiatry is provided as an online healthcare service through advanced technology, and often uses videoconferencing systems like skype or zoom to complete the appointment.
There are many benefits to telepsychiatry over other options available including:
– Improves client(s) access to mental health specialty care that may not have been previously available to them
– Allows them to have care provided to them at the client’s location
– Integrated behavioral health and primary care to provide positive outcomes
– Reduces the need for the client to make trips to the emergency room
– Reduces any delays in needed care
– Improves the continuity of care after a hospitalization, or psychiatry appointment for follow-ups
– Reduces the need for the client to take time off work, get childcare or find a way to get to their appointment (transportation)
– Reduces the stigma barrier
The client as well as the psychiatrist will have either a computer or a smartphone available to access the virtual appointment. A notice will be sent with instructions on how to log in to the appointment if it is video conferencing or via phone call.
Initial consultations are on average of about 60 minutes, depending on what will be brought up. After that, the appointment time frame will vary depending on the length of appointment the patient wants. Follow-ups will be booked, as well as medication management appointments which depend if medication is necessary. These last around 15 to 20 minutes.
Before the telepsychiatry visit ends, another appointment may be booked, and a notice will be sent either via email or another way with the information to access the next appointment.
For more information regarding telepsychiatry services, call us. We serve patients from Salem NH, Windham NH, Atkinson NH, Plaistow NH, Pelham NH, Hampstead NH, Danville NH, and Derry NH.
