Breakthrough Trends '08: Medicine on the Net
AllHealthcare
Trend 2: Getting Your Medicine on the Net
Slowly but surely, medicine is finding ways to take advantage of the Internet. This quarter some big insurers started to pay MDs for Internet housecalls. A new startup, AmericanWell.com, launched, offering the ability to talk to a doctor online instantly for a price of $1.99 a minute, or, if you’re covered, by major health insurers. Speaking at the Health 2.0 Spring Fling confence in San Diego, CEO Roy Schoenberg, said the new service not only lets patients get answers right away. It’s also attractive to doctors who can log in when they have a few free minutes at home or in traffic to get in more billable hours.
And though Microsoft and Google Health would like to help, the jury’s still out on how the medical records space will evolve. Consumer-centric systems haven’t caught on in the past and don’t appear to be ramping up at this time. Still, both companies made major announcements introducing their new platforms.
What does seem to be popular with consumers is rating services. Just as Yelp gave consumers voice about popular restaurants, new medical rating services launched left and right this quarter. While both state and federal governments offer a variety of hospital and nursing home rating sites, new for-profit companies announced sites for professionals to rate providers (NursesRecommendDoctors.com) and for consumers to rate physicians (Angieslist.com).
Carol.com, the most exciting of the new Health 2.0 companies, lets you comparison shop for care locally, on a user friendly shopping site that looks more like a friendly retailer than a stodgy HMO. The new service also tells you what your co-pay with each provider will cost – before you book an appointment and lab tests.
On the insurer front, high drug costs are prompting a call for more online ordering of prescriptions.
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Keeping abreast of online developments can only help your career and might mean a breakthrough for you or your company. Get a healthy dose of Internet med trends from these links. If you want to join a startup, carefully separate the idealists from the realists to find the best odds for the upside.
Next: Trend #3: Lower Costs = Better Outcomes