To study the patient preference of virtual vs in-person visits, and factors influencing the decision if a preference exists.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased utilization of tele-health services in everyday clinical practice. After this crisis is over, it will be curious to see how the use of tele-health has affected the patient experience in the field of neuromuscular medicine.

We phone surveyed patients from 10 neuromuscular centers in USA and Canada.

The Data from the 520 collected surveys revealed that 26% preferred virtual visits, 50% preferred in-person visits and 24% had no preference. 64%  reported physical face-to-face interaction as “very important”. For receiving a new diagnosis, 55%  preferred in-person vs  35% reported no preference. 40% were worried about not being physically examined vs 20% about vitals recording. 84% believed virtual visits were sufficiently private. 68% didn’t consider expenses a factor in their decision. While 92% were comfortable with communication technology. 55% preferred video communications, and 19% preferred phone calls. Patients who were concerned about either a lack of physical exam by a specialist or lack of vitals check had significantly higher odds of selecting physical visits compared to no preference (p-value 0.0001 and 0.0006, respectively). Patients who responded that expenses affected their decision had significantly higher odds of selecting virtual visits (p-value =0.0104). There was no significant difference in patient selection of either visit based on symptom control, disease severity or disease type. 

Although neither technology, privacy or finance burdened patients in our study, more patients preferred physical interaction over virtual communication especially to receive a new diagnosis. Interaction and gestures seemed to be the most important factor affecting the decision. This emphasizes the importance of the healing effect of the physician’s touch.