Last week, I spoke at a telehealth conference at Stony Brook University. Here’s my first slide: Here’s why. Sixteen years in, the industry leader did 1.1 million visits in the past 12 months. To put this in perspective, there are 1.1 billion doctor visits per year in America. A recent study also showed that, out of 20 million people, 0.51% of them filed a telehealth … Continue reading Telehealth vs. Urgent Care: Who is the clear winner?

Say there’s someone in your own company in a different city and you’re working on the same project together or maybe someone you met online due to a shared interest and you converse with these folks regularly, but only on Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn. But after communicating with them enough and reading their emails or posts, one day you think to yourself, “my goodness, … Continue reading There’s a new kind of relationship

I’ve been thinking a lot about the collapse of healthcare recently and what it’s going to look like. So I’ve been talking to a lot of people about it. Both people in and outside the industry. Here’s what I’ve concluded: The collapse is currently happening. It’s more severe than anyone thinks. And it’s starting with the middle/upper class entrepreneurs and gig workers. Think about these … Continue reading Healthcare is collapsing. Now. And it’s worse than people think.

I recently read a nice piece about why CareMore Health and Iora and One Medical and all the other groups out there trying to reinvent office-based primary care haven’t “become the new normal.” CareMore was founded in the 90’s and has now ~130,000 patients and has changed hands multiple times most recently selling for $800M to Anthem. Iora has raised ~$225M and I haven’t been … Continue reading Why haven’t new models of primary care become mainstream already?

Sherpaa is one of those things where, once you experience a primarily online relationship with your own doctor, it’s hard to imagine going back to the old-fashioned “you can only talk to me during an increasingly expensive exam room visit.” I talk a ton about how amazing Sherpaa is and why you should be primarily communicating and problem-solving with your own personal doctor online, but … Continue reading What can’t Virtual Primary Care do?

With the Apple Watch’s new Fall Detection capability, you can quickly see how technology can update the old “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” concept. Or maybe it’s not a fall, it’s a heart attack or low blood sugar from your diabetes, or a kidnapping, or a hostage situation or a sexual assault. The Watch can’t detect any of those situations, but you need … Continue reading Set up your iPhone to easily message your friends or family if you’re in trouble

The scope of conversations in a primary care setting is massive. There are ~1,500 conditions primary care physicians typically diagnose and manage, but you’ve always got to be aware of and on the lookout for the other 10,000 or so conditions that are diagnosed and managed by specialists. To put it another way, PCPs manage the common, less complex conditions and specialists manage the more … Continue reading Artificial Intelligence in Primary Care

The easiest way to understand the costs of primary care is to simply consider the most expensive part of delivering primary care— the salaries and benefits of physicians, NPs/PAs, nurses, and staff. To keep things simple, we’ll ignore the other costs like facilities and operations. For this exercise, we’ll consider a 10,000 patient primary care practice and we’ll compare three kinds of practices: A traditional … Continue reading Comparing the operational costs of traditional primary care, Direct Primary Care, and Virtual Primary Care