By: Health Insurance
Submitted: 2009-08-09 11:09:50 | Word Count: 579
Feeling under the weather? Try the Web.
More doctors are going digital as a growing number of health insurers cover online medical consultations -- where patients get treated for minor ailments via online chats, video conferencing and interactive questionnaires.
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"An increasing number of health insurers are either doing this on a more global basis or are conducting" pilot tests, as more doctors find the online approach useful for certain kinds of consultations, says Susan Picano, a spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, an association representing nearly 1,300 insurance companies.
Easy Access
Online visits are particularly handy for simple follow-up visits or when patients live far from their doctors, says Mark Schiller, a psychiatrist in San Francisco who sometimes holds follow-up appointments through video chat. And they generally are less expensive than in-person consultations.
Many of the insurers that cover the consultations require that they be conducted through secure online connections and by doctors within their networks.
Insurers Aetna and Cigna are covering digital consultations conducted at RelayHealth.com. In what Atlanta-based RelayHealth calls a webVisit, patients answer detailed written questions about their symptoms and a report is sent to the doctor. The physician then responds within 24 hours through the site with follow-up questions, a suggested treatment, a prescription or a request to see the patient in person.
The online consultation system also automatically sends a prompt telling patients to see a doctor or go to an emergency room if the condition seems serious. Both Aetna and Cigna require that patients hold a webVisit only with doctors with whom they have an established relationship.
The RelayHealth site also offers free services including appointment scheduling, prescription refills and disclosure of test results. More than 20,000 physicians nationwide are using the site, says Jim Bodenbender, RelayHealth's president.
Boston-based American Well allows people to sign on through their health insurer's Web site to immediately consult with a doctor through a secure chat or a video or phone conference. Doctors can prescribe treatment or medication or ask the patient to go to the office in person. The company works with insurance companies including OptumHealth and the Blue Cross Blue Shield programs in Minnesota and Hawaii.
Both RelayHealth and American Well give patients the option of sending reports of their digital consultations to other physicians.
What It Costs You
Doctors typically receive between $25 and $35 for online consultations through both RelayHealth and American Well. Patients generally have a co-pay of about $10, though it varies by individual plans.
For patients who are paying for the services out of pocket, the cost could be $25 to $45, though some doctors don't charge a fee.
Other online medical-consultation services are available. But for now at least, many insurers are still hesitant about covering the cost of online visits that go beyond the structured questionnaire format because of security concerns and lack of demand from patients.
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