Next time you have a cold or a post-op concern, you can check in with your doctor via smartphone from the comfort of your living room.
Arizona-based telehealth startup eVisit, a web-based software that connects doctors with their patients, is expanding its horizons by introducing a mobile app and transitioning into a more inclusive patient engagement platform.
eVisit is a software available to doctors and health providers that allows them to connect with their patients virtually through face-to-face video chat.
“Primary care offices are overburdened, so what we offer is 24/7 access to a Board Certified physician,” eVisit CEO Bret Larsen said.
While the closed BETA period has mostly attracted primary care doctors and orthopaedics, Larsen also noticed dietists, allergy clinics, and even dermatologists show interest.
eVisit was designed to help reduce doctor wait times. The national average wait time to see a physician is about 18.5 days, according to the Merritt Hawkins 2014 survey.
”We are trying to leverage the doctor’s existing patient population to help drive addition interaction,” Larsen said.
eVisit’s secondary goal is to eliminate non-HIPPA compliant methods of communication, such as patient-doctor text conversations including pictures of wounds or rashes. The company is working on adding HIPPA compliant messaging between doctor and patient, HIPPA compliant file sharing, and eventually an Apple Watch integration.
READ: eVisit welcomes new CTO to its telehealth family
The company also announced a mobile app release for Apple users, with Android and Google Play apps coming in the next few weeks.
“We are really trying to shift the platform from being more of a telehealth software to a patient engagement platform with a strong telehealth component,” Larsen said.
The idea for the startup began over a year ago. They started building the software in March 2014 and had their first paying client in February 2015. The open BETA is scheduled for June 1, and so far 368 providers have signed up during the closed BETA period.
Larsen noticed in his research that doctor’s patients were calling late on Friday nights asking for a prescription. Doctor’s would comply because the relationship was important to them. “We built the software platform to maintain the doctor-patient relationship,” Larsen said. “We place the physician experience at the top of our list.”
Through eVisit, a patient can get a prescription written up for them in seconds after a video meeting. The electronic prescriptions work at about 56,000 pharmacies nationwide.
Currently, Medicare and Medicaid have to reimburse for telehealth visits in 42 states and private payers have to reimburse in 23 states. With eVisit, the software is capable of figuring out a co-pay amount based on the user’s insurance.
“The software facilitates collecting the patient’s insurance information,” Larsen said. “It validates that the insurance is still in effect and then it comes back and presents the payment amount.”
A first year contract for providers with eVisit is $6,000, which covers the first three providers. Each additional provider is $100 per month.
As for building a business in the state, “We love Arizona, we want to build the ecosystem here,” Larsen said.
Read about more startups in telehealth at AZ Tech Beat.
Photos courtesy of eVisit
