Depends on what you tell the phone Dr., I am sure sometimes the answer is, Get to the ER!
I can easily imagine situations where I would much rather do this than get myself into some physical clinic or doctor’s office.
Old-fashioned Luddites object to steam-powered looms. New-fashioned Luddites object to doctor apps on their smartphones. Totally different. 
Doctor visits are rare for me for anything other than preventative stuff…except for sinus infections. The biggest chunk of my adult doctor visits are for exactly that. My biggest long term health issue is having sinuses that bacteria love. I’ve gotten good at recognizing them early and evicting them so it’s not 2-3 times year like when I was younger. I’m also well trained at recognizing the difference between viral and bacterial issues. If/when I have to move to anti-biotics, rarely is there even any substantial question or checking by the doctor. I rattle off my symptoms, they agree it’s likely bacterial, and I am out the door minutes later with a prescription. If this saved me even half those trips… awesome!
This would also be awesome for the people who come here asking if their minor medical condition is worth seeing a doctor over.
“I have a splinter do I need to go the the ER?”
“I cut my foot off with a chain saw. Will taping it on let it reattach or should I see a doctor?”
If it encourages more people to check in with a doctor on a regular basis, I’m for it. There are so many non-urgent maladies that don’t necessarily need an in-person assessment, and not having you drag your possibly measles infected self into a waiting room to contaminate the place is a fantastic idea.
Of course, if the problem requires in-person assessment, it should get that. But hearing from a doctor on Skype, “I think you need to go see your doctor,” instead of just your wife nagging you with the same exact words is more compelling for a lot of people.
I’d use it. I hate going to the doctor or hospital. They’ve got sick people there. Germs spread.
They probably have it set up so that us new-fashioned Luddites can do the same thing by accessing their websites via Internet connection from our desktop computers.
-RTFirefly, who is still back in 2006, techwise
It depends. ER visits are expensive and usually quite time-consuming. And before Urgent Care and Ask-A-Nurse lines came along, ERs were the only answer if you needed some sort of immediate medical attention, but your primary care doc wasn’t available or if you didn’t have one.
A lot of stuff that the ERs used to handle is now being done by Urgent Care and Ask-A-Nurse, and that’s a Good Thing: a lot of stuff, back in the Bad Old Days, could have been pushed down the hierarchy of care options, except no such hierarchy existed yet.
ISTM that this adds one more option, and I sure hope my Federal BC/BS adds it soon: it’s damn near perfect for people like me who are at their best when expressing themselves in text.
If I’ve got a health problem and I’m at a keyboard, I’ll be much more clear, succinct, and specific in describing my symptoms than I would be in a face-to-face conversation with a doctor, and I’ll be less likely to forget to mention a symptom or two. And then when the doc calls back, she’s read my message and thought about it for a minute or two, and our conversation, starting much further along than a conversation in the doctor’s office or in the ER examining room would, can be brief and to the point.
Seems like about as close to an optimal use of both the doc’s time and my own as I can imagine. And presumably if the doc feels that a telephone consultation is insufficient, the doc can recommend an Urgent Care or ER visit.
You’re a conservative. You’re supposed to be “stand[ing] athwart history, yelling ‘Stop.’” 
I’ve been wondering why they haven’t been doing this for years.
Heck, your insurance company could provide you with a kit that plugs into your phone that would allow the doc to check your vitals if he or she wanted to.
These kits already exists if I’m not mistaken.
Seems wholly adequate to me. Really the doctor isn’t even necessary. Automated diagnosis programs do as well or better than doctors. Computers are better at diagnosing and treating patients than doctors
Depersonalize that shit! Get rid of unnecessary power dynamics.
I use something kind of similar but it’s not required by my insurance. I use an e-dermatology service to get my acne treated since the derms around here are terrible.
My skin is clear for the first time in my life with their services.
So I’d say distance medicine definitely works for some conditions based on my experience. I could also imagine using it for the other major reason I visit the doctor every year which is to refill my birth control yearly. The appointment goes “Hi, I’m here to refill my pill.” “Okay, do you have any problems?” “Nope.” “ok bye, we will refill it.”
I don’t understand what’s the problem with offering an option? When is offering more options ever a bad thing? Why would you want there to be fewer options?
Bricker can’t you think of ANY situation in which it would be better to speak with your doctor from your home instead of seeing them physically? Such as when you feel very very sick, or are physically injured?
When you have a 102 fever with a severe sore throat and orange mucus do you really need to drag your contagious ass into a doctor’s office to be told you have a bacterial infection?
I’m an ER doctor and the terms “simple consultation” and “moderate consultation” are meaningless to me. Can you explain what they mean, including where your expertise in this area comes from?
Well, when face-to-face diagnosis is truly needed, this is a wholly inadequate substitute. When it isn’t, this might be adequate.
The original definition referred to English workers who destroyed the machinery taking their jobs. So maybe a new-fashioned one would be one that goes around trying to crash into Google cars?
If it keeps me out of the petri dish waiting room at the doctor’s office, I’m all for it.
I admit it sucks to have to get to the doctor’s office in that circumstance. I’d rather return to the days of house calls. But I don’t feel that a video visit is as good a medium for diagnoses as a live visit is.
But I admit that I am basing this on an inchoate feeling rather than any solid fact.
Thus this thread.
They come, from either University of California or Blue Shield of California - the only people (outside the St. Mary’s ER )I have dealt with for the last 7 years.
By the document, there were three tiers for “consultation”: simple, moderate, and complex.
The St. Mary’s referenced is the one in Sacramento.
Just saw the news that some people just got their hands slapped for paying MDs to order useless tests.
I’m guessing that a consultation involving ordering lab work and reviewing results would count as at least one “complex”.
This sounds like a really great way to run a small-time prescription drugs scam. How does the doctor verify that you really are sick and who you say you are through this app?
Also, plenty of people don’t know what an important symptom is, or don’t consider something a symptom, or just plain don’t notice it (understandably) because they are laypeople and not trained. For example, you make a complaint about a “stomach ache” and have failed to notice that you are ever so slightly yellowish–what then? Or you have a “persistent cough” that’s driving you nuts–this could be a symptom for a million things, and how is a doctor going to tell without a stethoscope and possibly a chest x-ray? It could be a cold. It could be pneumonia. It could be lung cancer. It could be CHF. So then maybe they tell you to come in so they can differentiate, but there are bunches of symptoms like this, and severe conditions that can present mildly at first, so then they wind up having to tell people to come in for a lot of different things just to cover themselves, and then how is that more efficient?
Medicare has something similar for routine office visits: 99213 for “low complexity” and 99214 for “moderate complexity”. Although it’s not as simple as using a stethoscope or doing vitals, it may look that way to the patient. It’s truly (meant to be) based on the complexity of the presenting problem and how much medical decision making a visit required. Coding “Routine” Office Visits: 99213 or 99214? | AAFP
It’s more efficient because there are many things that the doctor will not have to tell people to come in for and they will be the most common problems…
I don’t know about you- but most of the time when I’m at the doctor because I’m not feeling well, it’s a very short visit. He doesn’t go straight to a chest x-ray for a persistent cough or to an MRI for headaches. And what he does is mostly based on my report of my symptoms, even when I’m there in person- he doesn’t have me wait around long enough to determine the color and quantity of what I’m coughing up for himself. He doesn’t send me for a sleep study if I say I’ve been having trouble sleeping the past few days. Probably 90% of the time he could decide how to treat me just based on what I tell him.
Now the initial treatment doesn’t work or the problem recurs too often , testing etc will happen- but for many short-term illnesses and minor injuries it doesn’t need to happen every time.