Dr. Hipster Makes House Calls

Katherine Mangu-Ward | June 1, 2009

After stumbling upon some common ground with the crafty hipsters who make toys and also make trouble for government regulators, I'm delighted to find yet another libertarian-compatible hipster venture in the news today. This time, they're meddling in health care:

Started in August 2008 in Williamsburg, Hello Health has attracted roughly 300 members. For $35 per month, members gain access to Hello Health’s website....Unlike most health IT platforms, Hello Health looks more like Flickr or Facebook than, say, Windows 95. Members can IM and email with their doctors, make appointments online, and access their digital health record, which includes blog-post style, doctor-authored summaries of each appointment.

Members are guaranteed appointments within 24 hours of scheduling, and can choose between visiting the office, receiving a house call, or, for minor illnesses or follow-up sessions, videoconferencing with a doc. Hello Heath doesn’t take insurance (though patients with coverage are free to submit bills to insurers on their own), and all appointment fees are set in advance–$100 to $200 depending on the complexity of the visit, with lab tests and generic meds included in the price.

This model may not save the country from entitlement fiscal doom, but this kind of experimentation is exactly what we need right now if we're going to find a way out of the hole we dug for ourselves the Boomers dug and then threw us into.

Of course, if you start to feel too warm and fuzzy toward the denizens of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there's always the folks on this website.

Comments

Xeones|6.1.09 @ 3:25PM|#

"This website" is down for maintenance. What was it? And where did you get that picture of phalkor?

|6.1.09 @ 3:26PM|#

I'm delighted to find yet another libertarian-compatible hipster venture...

For some reason, I read that as libertarian-compostable hipster...

I like my version better.

|6.1.09 @ 4:03PM|#

"""Members can IM and email with their doctors, make appointments online, and access their digital health record, which includes blog-post style, doctor-authored summaries of each appointment."""

Who keeps the health record, and at what point do you sign a HIPAA consent form? In the TOS?

"""all appointment fees are set in advance-$100 to $200 depending on the complexity of the visit, with lab tests and generic meds included in the price.""""

In house labs only? Does it include diagnostic imaging? Probably not.

This will fold in less than a year. What are they reallying offering for the money? A web site that will make an appointment for you? Your medical record has been available to you by demand for a while due to HIPAA laws. People might not realize that the website might be holding your medical info.

"" Members can IM and email with their doctors, make appointments online, and access their digital health record, """

Much of what the website says it can do, is already available in some new(er) EMRs.

|6.1.09 @ 4:15PM|#

There are a ton of ways to make health care available to almost everyone in America, but sadly, Obama didn't invite me, or anyone else who wasn't sucking up to gain favor when the universal healthcare is forced in anyway, to the decision making group a few weeks back.

|6.1.09 @ 4:18PM|#

I live in Williamsburg, and Hello Health is my local clinic. They're fucking awesome.

hmm|6.1.09 @ 4:20PM|#

Sounds like a good business model. I wonder what the potential is for a national doc in a box based on the same idea.

Paul|6.1.09 @ 4:21PM|#

Matter of time before this is regulated out of existence.

|6.1.09 @ 4:30PM|#

This site is up now.

This isn't really insurance replacement. It may help some of the hipsters in Williamsburg without insurance for small things. If your not too sick or too hurt it might be ok. But if you're really hurt, or you need to see a specialist, you're screwed. That's a huge out of pocket expense, IF you can find one that will see you without insurance.

We don't really pay for insurance just for the Dr.'s visits. It's for the catastrophic events we hope won't happen.

|6.1.09 @ 5:01PM|#

Unlike most health IT platforms, Hello Health looks more like Flickr or Facebook than, say, Windows 95.

And if Windows 95 were a website, that would mean something. I suspect Hello Health looks more like the Mona Lisa than it looks like a 75-foot long seahorse, but that doesn't mean it looks like the Mona Lisa at all.

SpongePaul|6.1.09 @ 5:14PM|#

ya know back in the 90's before all the drug crackdowns on docs, you could just ring up the doc on the tele, say hey doc i got bronchitis, and violia meds await at the pharmacy, no charge, no office visit, or doc i sprained me leg, bam! hydrocodone awaiting at the pharmacy. then clinton and bush pushed through regulation that made it mandatory for offic evisits and screwed all healthcare up! Doc's cant and wont do things like that today, for fear of lawsuits and the DEA

I, Kahn O\'Clast|6.1.09 @ 5:20PM|#

My wife found a doctor who does not accept insurance and as such is able to charge significantly less that peers. He is not forced to hire a small army of assistants to follow up on claims.... We can submit our own claims if we wish separately....

DBN|6.1.09 @ 5:25PM|#

then clinton and bush pushed through regulation that made it mandatory for offic evisits and screwed all healthcare up! Doc's cant and wont do things like that today, for fear of lawsuits and the DEA

Private insurers are responsible for this, not lawsuits or the DEA. They won't reimburse for a treatment without a physician seeing the patient and, depending on the circumstance, minor confirmatory testing.

Regarding Hello Health, it's a good idea in that it makes primary care more friendly, but it won't help with controlling healthcare costs, which are mostly hospital and/or acute disease related, not due to primary care expenses. Primary care costs have been essentially level for decades, with most healthcare inflation being due to the increasing cost of sophisticated care for the very ill.

JB|6.1.09 @ 5:36PM|#

I love those scarves. I can automatically identify someone as a total douche and ignore their existence.

wingnutx|6.1.09 @ 5:51PM|#

I love those scarves. I can automatically identify someone as a total douche and ignore their existence.

They are also pretty handy if the situation gets all chokey.

|6.1.09 @ 6:22PM|#

You can't be a crafty hipster without a kaffiyeh! Get yours today!

ed|6.1.09 @ 6:33PM|#

the hole the Boomers dug and then threw us into

Really? You can blame all of America's problems on people born from 1946 to 1964?
How convenient for you, Ms. -Ward. Everybody needs a good scapegoat.

robc|6.1.09 @ 7:00PM|#

TrickyVic,

The key is to buy ONLY catastrophic health insurance (if your state allows) and use something like this for the small stuff.

Cheap insurance (especially if young) and then pay out of pocket for that 1 time a decade you need a doctor. (What? People go more than that?)

Steven|6.1.09 @ 7:18PM|#

You can blame all of America's problems on people born from 1946 to 1964?

Not all, just most.

|6.1.09 @ 7:53PM|#

You can blame all of America's problems on people born from 1946 to 1964 1957?

FTFY

Paul|6.1.09 @ 10:30PM|#

You can blame all of America's problems on people born from 1946 to 1964?

Not all, just most.

Yes, all. All. Of. Them.

IanTheTerrible|6.1.09 @ 10:30PM|#

Just want to point out that one of the hopsters on LATFH (linked site) has a Fountainhead tattoo. That is all.

|6.1.09 @ 11:35PM|#

"""The key is to buy ONLY catastrophic health insurance (if your state allows) and use something like this for the small stuff.""""

This only covers minor stuff. There is a lot between minor and catastrophic that would be expensive out of pocket. Catastrophic insurance would still cost a nice piece of change and I wonder if the definition of catastrophic would be static in the long term.

Health costs are expensive, we can try to reduce the costs, stabilize the costs, or become creative on how to keep paying the higher costs.

We need to improve tools for self diagnosis and a less regulated way of getting the medication. Take care of ourselves for the minor shit. Reserve the pros for the bigger stuff.

Yes, I too am laughing at the political absurdity of above paragraph.

GILMORE|6.2.09 @ 12:43AM|#

I have lived here in the burg for 10 years and am not a hipster. Although I am not sure what the antithesis is supposed to be. But the highlights of that website you linked to are fairly spot-on. The better version (because of the snarky commentary) of the same thing is Vice mags "Do's and Don'ts"

here =

Solana | June 1, 2009, 4:18pm | #
I live in Williamsburg, and Hello Health is my local clinic. They're fucking awesome.

I should look into this. I'm losing my coverage in the next 2 months. Good looking out H&R.

GILMORE|6.2.09 @ 12:46AM|#

Whoops, forgot to link =

example
http://www.viceland.com/int/dd.php?id=1798

|6.2.09 @ 2:16AM|#

Howard Dean is correct.

"a"(Toothy, Robust)"public health insurance option is more important than bipartisanship, and Democrats should pass health-care legislation that includes the option with 51 votes if necessary."

"Democrats should have "no intention" of working with Republicans if it's not the strongest possible legislation that could be passed with a simple majority." (Howard Dean)

This is what WE THE PEOPLE gave the Democrats all that power to do for ALL of us.

You see, Dr. Dean knows that in medicine and healthcare there is only one acceptable standard. And that standard is the HIGHEST level of EXCELLENCE you can provide for everyone. Nothing less has ever been acceptable in caring for a precious human life. This is one of the unique and difficult aspects of medicine and healthcare.

jacksmith -- WORKING CLASS

ed|6.2.09 @ 8:32AM|#

You know, the Nazis had scapegoats too...