So many comments!  So much entertainment!!  Actually one of my favorite parts of being talked about on the internet is reading comments from all the anonymous blue-haired doctors (they’re all anonymous – they wouldn’t want their patients seeing them act like fools on the internet).  Here’s my favorite from the WSJ post:

“This reminds me of all the dot com startups that had completely non-viable business plans. They’ve all bitten the dust. Apparently healthcare will be the last hurrah for them? If there is one thing that is non-fungible, it’s a doctor doing a physical exam on you. That’s hard to do by IM chat. Your ‘medical home’ doesn’t exist in cyberspace. If someone is vomiting blood, and having crushing substernal pain, I doubt Jay and his Chick-fil-A franchisees will be there for you.” – Comment by RealDoc 

Of course I feel fully obligated to respond:

“‘RealDoc’…thank you for your opinion. However, you are confused about what we do and how we communicate with our members. Accessible communication via the internet combined with physical exams in your home or our office is what we do…and if someone contacts us complaining of vomiting blood, we’re excellent doctors, we handle it just like you would handle it…the only difference being that we’re accessible by the internet as well as in person — and I would wager a fair bit of money that you nor your traditionalist colleagues are as accessible as us. It’s not your fault. You don’t get paid for accessibility. You play by the system’s rules and only get paid for volume. We, on the other hand, get paid for accessibility. And consumers happen to like accessible doctors when they have crushing substernal pain or they’re vomiting blood. In fact, they’ll even pay a reasonable price for it! Ask one and they’ll tell you something along these lines — “I like an accessible doctor who I can communicate normally with when I’m vomiting blood.” I also realize you are a physician and don’t really use the internet to communicate very much. However, step out of that world into the real world and you’ll see that people are using the internet to communicate — and that’s why I call the way we communicate ‘normal.’” – Comment by Jay Parkinson 

Wall Street Journal: Technodoc Jay Parkinson Says Hello to Franchising