You wake up on a Saturday morning with a strange rash on your arm. Should you go to an urgent care clinic – or perhaps get a diagnosis online?
As the health care industry embraces new technology, more providers may be able to offer some of your care over the Internet, allowing you to stay home — and save time and money.
One Minneapolis company, HealthPartners, has caught onto the idea. It offers “e-visits” through interactive diagnostic questionnaires online for about 40 different conditions with clear treatment protocols, according to a story in U.S. News & World Report.
Nurse practitioners stand by around the clock to review the questionnaires, as well as any uploaded photos of visible symptoms. If the questionnaire flags anything potentially serious, the interview ends and the patient is offered a list of options for in-person visits.
The cost of these e-visits are about $40 or less, compared with $100 or more for a trip to the doctor’s office or ER.
Both Kaiser Permanente and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center allow their primary care physicians to offer E-visits. Even doctors who are not yet offering care this way are increasingly communicating with patients by secure e-mail through patient portals.
Despite the ease of virtual medicine, most patients still get care in person. While some insurance companies like Cigna, Aetna and Humana pay doctors for e-visits, the industry has not agreed on how to define them.