My mother-in-law has a pacemaker and when her doctor needs to check things out, he somehow dials in and downloads the necessary information. No visit needed
As to** Bricker**'s question, based on this article I would say no. 
I think a lot of people overestimate what doctors are able to do for common maladies, and I think parents are often very nervous about making judgment calls themselves. I know doctors probably think I’m “That Guy,” but I’ll generally make an attempt a Google diagnosis before seeing a doctor about anything, because half the time the treatment options don’t require a prescription or any expert advise. Having an interactive version of WebMD seems like a much better option than me relying on Google-Fu, and lessens the risk that I’m going to horribly misdiagnose myself or one of my kids.
I actually work for a company that does a lot of urgent care, and it was explained to me that the vast majority of things they see are stuff like coughs, colds, allergies, sore throats and sinus infections, all of which are the kind of thing that provided you don’t have some kind of red flags, any doctor is going to give you some sort of conservative treatment and have you come back if you don’t get better on your own.
So why not do that over the phone or online? Then, if you come back, they’ll likely have you see a real doctor and get a real diagnosis.
Or I suppose you could drag your ass into the office and be seen by a PA or NP with the same outcome. Your choice.
I think this will actually be the biggest benefit of such a system.
My insurance has a service where I can call a number and speak to a nurse and describe my symptoms, and he or she will either tell me to go to a doctor or tell me to go to a doctor if <some specific thing gets worse>, or tell me that it’s probably not necessary to go to a doctor.
I would say that about 50% of my doctor visits could be handled over the phone. They simply involve talking.
But it’s just an option. Why would it ever be a problem offering another option? That’s my essential question. I get that you’re not interested in using the service (which is fine) but why is providing an option a bad thing or something to be upset about? Do you object in principle to the nurseline? (A phone number you can call to talk to a nurse).
Again prefacing this comment with the caveat that it’s an uninformed, inchoate feeling…
…yes, I worry that the option is a bad thing. If (as I darkly suspect) the diagnostic range of the doctor is sharply limited by the phone, then some people who take the option will be suffering from some more serious condition than is diagnosed, and will lose valuable treatment time because they’ll be told to take two aspirin instead of two Cipro.
My insurance offers a LiveHealth Online service that lets me meet a doc “face to face” with a phone app or a webcam. But the copay for this service is $49, same as a in-person visit. Given the limitations of what a doc can diagnose by A/V alone, if it’s going to cost me the same I’d just as rather show up at in person, thanks. Cut the co-pay in half and I’d be much more likely to use this service.
On the other hand, my last medical experience would have been tremendously better if I could have done this instead of seeking standard medical care. I developed a UTI that evening and headed to urgent care only to find that they closed at 8:00 and I got there at 8:02, so over to the emergency room I went. I waited for 7 hours before anyone saw me and they tried to force me to get a CAT scan so they could check for kidney stones. When I threatened to check myself out against medical advice they magically just handed me a prescription and sent me home at almost 3:00 a.m., $150 poorer and having to take a vacation day from work the next day because of the late hour of my release. A doc app that could have called in a prescription for me would have saved me time, money and vacation days and my insurance wouldn’t be paying for an ER visit.
Can they write you a prescription based on the app consultation. If not, then I think this loses a lot of value.
Ok. That explains why offering the service might be a bad idea for them, or for people who choose to use the service. However, how is offering the service in any way a bad thing for you? Does the propensity of business to incur liability often bother you deeply?
You keep harping on diagnosis. However, many doctors visits are not for the purpose of diagnosis. I recently had to leave work two hours early merely to “check in” with my orthopedist so he could write me a new prescription for physical therapy. There was no physical exam and the prescription itself was written by their PA. Literally nothing happened that could not have occurred by text. If I had been able to do my appointment remotely, I would not have lost productive hours at work. And since I work for the government, that means the doctor’s in-person visit requirement wasted your tax dollars.
Well, to the extent that a huge liability payment will drive up my future costs, I have have SOME negatives feelings towards the prospect.
I think that your analysis is one-sided.
You’re considering people who use this service as a replacement for going to the doctor, but you’re not considering people who use this service as a replacement for self-treatment.
There’s every reason to believe that the latter group will be much larger than the former. It’s a pain to go to the doctor, especially for some recent acute illness that requires immediate treatment. It often requires multiple hours waiting to be seen in a room with other sick people. Lots of people simply won’t go unless they really feel that they’re at death’s door. Make it easier to get an actual medical opinion (albeit one that may be more limited), and I think you’ll see a lot more people getting medical attention before the symptoms become too bad to ignore.
Add to that the awesome side effects that you get from not encouraging sick people to congregate together in a common place, and I think this will have great positive effects.
- Call in with a complaint about severe pain.
- Get morphine prescription.
- Profit!
Which insurance company is this? I have extreme anxiety about going to see doctors, and it makes it worse for me if anyone can see how anxious I am. Being able to fill out an online form in the privacy of my own home, without anyone seeing me be anxious, sounds like a wonderful thing to me. Talking about my symptoms to someone on the phone wouldn’t be nearly as good, but it would still be much better than doing it face to face. Where do I go to sign up?
Nope. For several reasons.
No one prescribes morphine for a first pain consult.
Morphine has to be a paper prescription in most cases.
The doctor can and will say, no, go see a doctor if your pain is that bad…if he wants to keep his contract with the insurance company.
Are there prescription mills out there? Absolutely. But they’re not run by insurance companies.
But unncessary in-person office visits for refills and routine follow-up also drive up costs. And congregating contagious people makes more people sicker, incurring even greater costs in money and productivity . And a preliminary level of remote care is fabulous for the disabled or people in very rural areas for whom visiting the doctor is quite an undertaking.
Look I’m not trying to say there’s no downside. I’m certainly not saying it’s inherently better than an in person visit. Only that it’s a great option for many common situations. Just like a GP who knows your whole history is great, but an Urgent Care where you see whoever is great in a lot of common situations.
Well, it’s a step above the 800 number, which is basically waiting on hold for an hour to be told to go to the ER (or not); they do not diagnose anything nor do they prescribe anything.
Would I use such a service? Rarely. I mean, I have asthma, which does flare occasionally; every couple of years I get a bad cold that goes into bronchitis and requires me to go on antibiotics and steroids. Not quite bad enough to go to the ER, but I need to be seen to get on the meds within 24 hours. If the doctor’s office is booked solid, a dial-a-doc might tide me over for a few days until I can get in.
Prescription refills? I suppose they could access your history and see that you were on xyz meds routinely and about to run out, so OK to renew.
Something like strep throat? Not good - can’t diagnose that for real over the phone. Something worse, the nurse line could handle it just as well by telling you to go to the ER.
I presume that if you do not have a smart phone, there’s a web-based tool you could access from a real computer.