There are plenty of trends coming to the fore in digital health. Consolidation, for one, seems to be impacting every aspect of the sector, even conferences — I’m looking at you Health 2.0 and HIMSS.
But one of the more curious developments involves telemedicine providers, particularly those with a direct-to-consumer channel — flashing doctors. It is currently male patients doing the flashing and it seems to be the new reality for telemedicine or at least a current fad, according to an article from CNBC.
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“There was a period where it was happening to some of our doctors once a week,” Bob Kocher, a Doctor on Demand investor, told CNBC.
It’s not just telemedicine businesses enlisting video that are having to deal with this issue. Telehealth companies that use store-and-forward technology in which customers take an image and that image is transmitted to a doctor are also affected. Chris Hogg, Propeller Health COO, previously led a digital health business called 100Plus, a consumer health app. In response to the CNBC article, he noted that it’s a problem he’s familiar with in this exchange with Skip Fleshman of Asset Management Ventures.
Through interviews with Doctor on Demand, American Well, MD Live, and Sherpaa, the article revealed that each business is attempting to cope with the problem. But many of the perpetrators use false information in the sign-up process, so it makes it tough to block these users.
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Through interviews with Doctor on Demand, American Well, MD Live, and Sherpaa, the article revealed that each business is attempting to cope with the problem. But many of the perpetrators use false information in the sign-up process, so it makes it tough to block these users.
Marketing campaigns offering free trials of telemedicine services have helped attract this kind of behavior, the article noted.
Roy Schoenberg, American Well CEO, told CNBC said that the company takes similar action to address these kinds of problematic behaviors that doctors would use for in-person visits. The company closes down the user’s login and verifies their identification with credit card authorization. So they may strike once but they’ll have a tough time striking again.
Although many physicians support telemedicine to increase access to care, some companies such as Carena and SnapMD believe that telemedicine technology should be used to enable hospitals and large physician practices to deliver telemedicine instead of direct-to-consumer businesses. Although that debate is likely to continue regardless of flashing, it’s not clear whether a hospital managing telemedicine delivery would be more effective at minimizing the problem.
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