N.Y. Health Insurers To Offer Virtual Doc Visits

CWmike writes "Two insurance organizations in upstate New York said on Wednesday that they will offer their members and employers virtual physician visits beginning this summer, making New York the fourth state to provide these types of services. BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, BlueShield of Northeastern New York and technology services provider American Well said the Online Care service will allow members to talk with physicians in real time through a private online chat network or through a voice-over-IP phone call. The service also offers video chat and instant messages. Members can sign on to the insurer's Web sites and look for physicians who are available online in various specialty areas."

Re:Conflict of interest

[OrwellianLurker]

In most states doctors are paid by insurance companies to prescribe xx% generic drugs out of all drugs prescribed.

Re:Just wait until they outsource it...

[CastrTroy]

Ontario (in Canada) has a hotline [gov.on.ca] you can call to get help. It's staffed by registered nurses, not doctors. However it works pretty well, because the point of it is really to tell you if you should just to direct you to the next point of care. Be it the emergency room, walk-in clinic, family physician, or just a little bed rest. Nurses are perfect qualified to at least direct you to where you should be going after hearing the symptoms, and it's a lot cheaper than having doctors on the phone. I think the main point of it was to keep people from going to the emergency room simply because they had a cold. Which happens way more often then it should.