CareSouth Offering Telehealth Visits for Medical and Behavioral Health

BATON ROUGE (April 8, 2020) – In response to COVID-19, CareSouth Medical and Dental is offering telehealth or virtual visits for its patients.  Chief Medical Officer Dr. Gregory Garner says he’s been seeing about 20 patients a day via telehealth for the past three weeks.

“We’re now seeing about 90 percent of our patients via telehealth visits,” Dr. Garner said.  “The patients are so just so happy to have this service available to them without having to leave their home. They are very appreciative too.”

The virtual visits which are done over the phone allow CareSouth staff at our locations in Baton Rouge, Plaquemine, Zachary, and Donaldsonville to continue to provide vital medical and behavioral health services such as individual, group or family therapy while protecting patients and staff from COVID-19. Patients are able to set up the appointments at their convenience.

The visits include patients who need follow-up appointments for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, pediatrics services, and behavioral health services.

Dr. Garner says it does not include high-risk patients or new patients. The clinic is still open to service to those patients in person, but the goal is to reduce the number of people in the clinic as much as possible during this time.

The staff has been busy calling patients who already have  appointments to change them to virtual visits. The number of virtual visits is expected to continue to grow.

“It’s represents a paradigm shift in how we serve patients that we think will last long after COVID-19,” said CEO Matthew Valliere.  “We’ll see more and more visits being done virtually. It’ll become the new normal.”

To make an appointment, call (225) 650-2000 or use the patient portal online atwww.caresouth.org.