It’s crazy that actually being able to email your doctor is still so unusual in this day and age. It’s one of the many “bizarre habits that have been ingrained” in the world of primary care, according to Dr. Tom X. Lee. And that’s why Lee started One Medical Group, which offers personalized “concierge” care to patients for $200 a year.
We start by offering same-day appointments that you can schedule conveniently online. In the office, we respect your time by meeting with you on schedule so you know you’ll be back to work on time. We also believe in building more personalized relationships with our patients, so we offer longer visits which means you have more high-quality time with your doctor. And after your visit, our online services make it simple to contact your doctor and even renew prescriptions without coming in for a follow-up visit — saving you both time and money.
When Lee started One Medical Group (OMG?), he said, “it was very clear that health care organizations were lacking both the service hospitality mind-set of hotels and the operational efficiency you’d see in manufacturing industries.” It now has several thousand patients and a growth rate of 50 percent a year, gained mostly by word of mouth.
Letting customers schedule appointments online also helps the company be more efficient. Most primary-care offices have at least four administrative employees per physician. OMG has cut that ratio in half.
Hello Health
Hello Health is another medical provider attempting to tackle the various unpleasantries of the typical doctor’s appointment. Some of the features of Hello Health:
Online Scheduling
The Online Availability Calendar lets you schedule appointments from anywhere.Secure Email
A safe and convenient way to communicate with your healthcare provider.Prescription Renewal
Request prescription renewals online and for pick up at your pharmacy.Secure Instant Messaging
Text-based, a simple way to access your healthcare provider.Video Visits
Meet face-to-face with your provider without leaving home.Lab Results
Save time and review test results and other important information online.
Hello Health emerged from the house calls and same-day “e-visits” of Dr. Jay Parkinson, a NYC doctor. When he launched his practice, Parkinson accepted PayPal, but not insurance. 300 patients signed up in the first three months. He said, “I run this entire thing off my iPhone and a laptop. I can access any patient records from my iPhone. Patients can make an appointment on my Web site and it’ll text me and I’ll go see them. This is, to me, what’s missing from medicine: personalized attentiveness.”
“The Doctor of the Future” talks about the evolution of Parkinson’s system. At Hello Health, patients pay a $35 monthly subscription fee and $100-200 an hour for online or office visits. Brief email queries are free.
There’s no receptionist, so doctors greet patients as they arrive. And patients can rate visits too. “You can rate a visit, comment on it, share it,” Parkinson says. “Is that innovative? Man, I don’t know. It’s paying attention to what’s awesome about Flickr and then doing it.”
Seems strange that bringing simple basics like email/live chat access and customer ratings to an industry can still be considered “groundbreaking.” So it’s nice to see companies like these challenging the status quo and picking a fight. The health care industry could use the shakeup.
Chris Frank
on 19 Apr 11I’m a patient at One Medical Group, and I love them. The doctors there don’t wear labcoats – they’re dressed like normal people. And they talk to you like an equal. They really do take appointments right on time.
These guys deserve every bit of success they get. I hope they can inspire change across the entire industry.
Sumeet Jain
on 19 Apr 11There’s also VirtuWell, which has an online emergency room for diagnosing colds, burns, acne, pink-eye, etc – and they even prescribe medication and give doctor’s notes (for work) during the online visit.
Matt
on 19 Apr 11I can help but think of the security implications if the level of vigilance for security issues is not high enough. Could you trust a company with you healthcare records forever? Healthcare is one area that im ok with not being on the internet. Sorry the information is to important and the trust is just not there.
Dan
on 19 Apr 11The Dr’s office is just one place that is in dire need of an update. As someone who has been working at a software company that supplies payers (insurance companies) with their software I can tell you that running a batch window every evening is right out of 1988. That kind of inefficiency has to be addressed at all levels (Payer, Provider, Patient) of the healthcare system… and we’re not even talking about sharing data yet… just processing it effectively.
carlivar
on 19 Apr 11Not taking insurance is the biggest shake-up, and the biggest improvement. The problem with insurance (no matter what you believe - private insurance, single payer - I’m talking economics, not politics) is that service and prices tend to rise or lower to the absolute levels set by insurance companies.
Direct payment changes that. Doctors have to compete with one another again (why would Dr. A care what Dr. B is doing if he gets paid the same by insurance either way?).
Competition is a wonderful thing and is utterly lacking in the healthcare industry (and public education, but that’s another topic).
asdf jr.
on 19 Apr 11Speaking on my father’s behalf, he never set out to “run a business” he was in it to help people. I think that is true of a lot of doctors… and why they often make really terrible business decisions.
Joe S
on 19 Apr 11You’re right in that its good to see “innovation” in the healthcare industry. And frankly it is good to see.
However, there is another perspective on these new concierge doctors. The Boston Globe’s article this Sunday highlighted another perspective on it.
My take is that both perspectives are valid. And it’ll be very interesting to see how the industry reacts to the growth of concierge services. I used to do IT work in a doctor’s office related to medical research, and its quite an interesting place to work.
Mark
on 19 Apr 11I think it really depends on the hospital. My experience has been that more and more doctors and major (old school) hospital systems are offering patient portals that offer many of the services you write about, and, best of all, there’s no subscription or additional fee.
Just here’s your username and password.
Tim
on 20 Apr 11MacroWikinomics covered trust.
Everyone gets their own “health” page (secured), maybe administered via a single tax or SS number (in Australia you could do it via Medicare number; our Medicare is VERY different from US Medicare).
You could “share” certain areas of your health page with providers – think along the lines of Google Docs and inviting people to look at a shared piece of info.
I think trust is the least of the problems.
This post has given me an idea, cheers.
t
Andy
on 20 Apr 11Qlliance in Seattle runs a “conceirge”-type office that’s geared toward the uninsured rather than the wealthy. They refuse to take insurance and Medicare and provide all primary care for a reasonable monthly fee. Their customers have to get catastrophic care insurance, but that is much more affordable than comprehensive insurance and the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the current system, from billing to malpractice, are slashed.
Brian M.
on 20 Apr 11Working as a software engineer in a hospital, there are TONS of IT inefficiencies that need to be addressed: EMR systems, financials…there’s a gamut of them.
It’s good to see how Dr’s offices are innovating towards efficiency and independences by being small, agile and responsive to change. However, the healthcare field is riddled with poor software, outdated methods and, often enough, a user base that is pretty IT unaware.
Stephen James
on 20 Apr 11Their ad should say “I canz email my doc? OMG!”
denise lee yohn
on 24 Apr 11can’t wait for someone to do this as a national brand, scaled, widely accessible, and cost effective - it’s a big retail idea just waiting to happen - denise lee yohn
margielee
on 25 Apr 11These guys deserve every bit of success they get. I hope they can inspire change across the entire industry. http://www.laptop-battery-store.ca laptop battery
Jenny Zhang
on 25 Apr 111. on-line consulting service needs infrastructure set-up, it’s hard to ask all doctors to have webcams set up on their laptop or desktop computers, especially for those experienced physicians who are usually not that savvy about computer technology. Systemic engineering needs to be in place to help optimize all process-related problems including well-designed ergonomic interface for both caregivers and patients. 2. It needs to start from a test field and learn lesson from there, plain thinking is not enough. Healthcare is a unique industry, because unlike others, it is heavily regulated and influenced by policies (cold some times), and heavily human-centered (warm in this regard). OMG, and Emergency condition based triage consulting has already in place and being tested. It’s a matter of time and what kind of leadership can emerge to bridge the gap between computer technology and healthcare delivery – with regard to efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
This discussion is closed.