Virtual visits with a board-certified physician are about to go national. NowClinic.com will use video chat to connect patients and doctors using video chat in 2010 nationwide, for routine, ordinary care.
There are many reasons this will work…especially for those physicians interested in lifestyle change, weight loss, diabetes and nutrition. I’m excited about it, and think it could help the doctor-patient relationship, not vitiate it.
Many consumers now feeling ripped off by their health care experience: neither patients or partners, they’re just surprised.
Emily Dwass “definitely was caught off guard when I checked in to see a specialist in a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center building in Los Angeles and was told to pay a $75 facility fee.” More and more common.
Our virtual visiting helped Wall Street Journal reporter Tom Burton lower cholesterol and lose weight…by phone and email, 2000 miles apart.
This is an opportunity. Telemedicine may explode in growth, Price Waterhouse says: $7 billion by 2015, taking disease management and IT to $100 billion if it really explodes.
Physicians do not have incentives to do basic preventive care. Most have substantial overhead that office counseling and diet histories just don’t pay for. And like other workers, doctors do more of what they are paid well to do.
What would you use videochat with a new doctor for? A cold? Weight loss? Diabetes control?