Dr. Shekhar Challa's Commitment to Healthcare Continues with Expanded Access to Care

Photo by | Emma Highfill

KMC is modernizing healthcare delivery while doing its part to increase access to dermatology and gastroenterology tele-health services to the Topeka and surrounding community. During the last two weeks alone, KMC has seen a virtual visit increase of 15 fold. All of this effort is helping their vulnerable populations and allowing patients and staff to have minimal exposure while continuing to provide medical care to the community.  

Telehealth services are now becoming a major force to protect the public and KMC health care personnel from spreading COVID-19 transmissions, while allowing patients to continue care. KMC has found tele-health visits allow for high-quality remote care, while helping to prevent care gaps during a public health crisis. 

“Our practice has made 10 years of change in 1 week’s time” says business owner and gastroenterologist Dr. Shekhar Challa.

“Our goal during this time is to ensure patient safety and increase access to quality care for those under local stay-at-home orders. All 10 office locations in Kansas and Missouri remain open for in-clinic visits, but we are seeing a lot of patients who are grateful for the availability of a tele-health option.”

Before the pandemic, only 1 in 10 patients in the US used tele-health, according to a J.D. Power survey from July 2019.  It comes as no surprise many people are not familiar with this emerging technology.  Patients of all ages and levels are welcome and encouraged to get personalized care from their doctor or provider in this way.

Once a patient books a virtual visit appointment with our staff, they receive an email confirmation immediately. One hour prior to their virtual visit appointment, the patient also receives an email and a text message reminder.  All of these communications have a link to quickly and easily join the virtual visit. No need to log in, just connect with your doctor or provider via video.

Most insurance providers cover telehealth visits, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Medicare. To ensure you have coverage, please contact your insurance provider.  Let’s flatten the curve, we are in this together.