For a company that wants to make it as easy to order a doctor as a pizza, expansion and timing are critical. Heal, which provides an on call service for people to request in-home visits from doctors for non emergency pediatric and primary care, has added the Silicon Valley to its coverage area. It’s part of a move to expand its doctor house call service to businesses and residences in the area and comes as the company prepares to add services such as prescription drug delivery by the end of the year.
In an interview with Heal co-founder Nick Desai, he talked about some of its safety protocols. For example, no doctor visits a home alone — they are accompanied and even driven by medical assistants. Keeping with the pizza them, the medical assistants deliver doctors in one of its fleet of “Heal mobiles.” Also, if doctors don’t feel comfortable with a neighborhood or the residence where the patient resides, they don’t have to go.Desai said so far, it hasn’t been an issue.
Its network of 110 doctors average eight to 12 visits per day and 12-16 when it’s busy, depending on the complexity of each case, Desai added.
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Over the summer it rolled out a mobile X-ray service through another company. Desai described it as an “expensive” service, something that customers wouln’t typically order unless it was for people with mobility problems when they need confirmation on whether someone has broken a limb or need an Xray for another reason such as confirming pneumonia, .
It plans to expand to San Diego in the next two months. Among the services it hopes to add next include an in home IV service and prescription delivery.