After closing Vinson Health Center, MSU is bringing its students a new, free healthcare option. MSU has partnered with TimelyCare to provide telehealth tools for students.
The TimelyCare resources focus primarily on medical, counseling and self-care.
Executive wellness director Angie Reay said the medical side offers quick, convenient medical advice and diagnoses for users.
“TimelyCare is our virtual health platform that is now available to all students when they go and log in. There’s a couple different features that it has, so it’s going to have the medical feature, when you log on if you want to talk to a doctor about any kind of things that you have going on, flu, cold, strep, anything like that,” Reay said.
In more urgent situations, TimelyCare providers have access to a list of MSU resources, allowing for referrals to localized options. TimelyCare only offers general physicians, but those doctors can refer students to specialists when needed.
“So let’s say you log in and the doctor recommends that you need to physically go and see someone, they have those referrals and those recommendations that we’ve provided from the university,” Reay said.
TimelyCare works exclusively with higher education institutions.
“They tailor everything for the college demographic,” Reay said.
Courtney Sanchez, TimelyCare client success manager, said one potential hiccup in implementation is that students are sometimes skeptical of the service.
“If a student has never had a telehealth visit, there definitely might be some students who might be skeptical. You know, “Is it good quality care, who am I meeting with, is it really free?’” Sanchez said, later adding, “Typically what happens is once they have a visit, they see the convenience of it and they’ll come back and use it again.”
Sanchez added that the most common positive feedback TimelyCare receives from users focuses on the platform’s ease of use.
“Convenience, no cost, diversity when they select their provider,” Sanchez said of the benefits students have liked about TimelyCare.
The TimelyCare network of providers serves over 350 institutions and over 2 million students. One service TimelyCare provides is Talk Now, a free counseling service that allows students to quickly connect with professionals to discuss stress and mental health
“The Talk Now side, that is the in-between of doing nothing if you want to talk to somebody and full counseling, going in for a traditional one-hour therapy session. You can still pop on the phone and talk to somebody if you’re having stress, anxiety, if you’ve got a big test coming up. Like anything that you want to go in and talk about, you can do that as many times a day as you want to, there is no limit to it,” Reay said.
Signup for TimelyCare is relatively quick, involving filling out some basic personal and medical information.
Reay said students should consider signing up even if they don’t expect to use the free service.
“Even if you think you’re not going to use it, go ahead and register because the last thing you want is if you need to see a doctor you don’t want to take the 10 minutes it takes to register the profile and everything when you want to see a doctor right then,” Reay said.
Another service TimelyCare offers is personalizable self-care programs and health coaching, covering everything from diet and exercise to mental health.
“If you’re having problems with sleep, nutrition, eating disorder, working out or any kind of health concern that you might have. Health coaching is the one that it is not immediate, that one’s a scheduled portion of the app. But you can hop on and talk to a certified health coach and they’ll help you through whatever you’ve got going on,” Reay said.
Other resources are self-guided, involving videos and tips.
“Having access to self-care for depression might be helpful. Our goal is to provide them with the resources needed before it escalates into a crisis situation,” Sanchez said.
TimelyCare recently signed the Texas A&M and University of Texas systems, expanding the already large user base. The TimelyCare app offers students a peer-to-peer community where students can interact with each other to discuss problems and solutions for physical and mental well-being.
TimelyCare is available in over 240 languages, and also offers students the ability to add a third party, like a parent or guardian to their accounts. For more information on TimelyCare, go to timelycare.com/msutexas.
