Long live the Web: Online sales in Membership Medicine Sector to top expectations according to industry experts.
By Michael Tetreault, Editor
AUGUST 4, 2015 – Innovative and trendy medical sectors such as dermatology, dentistry, surgery, LASIK, and a select few others, have adapted quickly to online appointment scheduling and social media advertisement of healthcare services. However, Primary Care and Family Medicine have yet to adopt such relationship-enhancement tools.
One early adopter in the primary care space for example we have highlighted and recognized in The Direct Primary Care Journal is R-Health. R-Health recently launched a GroupOn campaign for “Three-Month Personalized Primary Healthcare Membership for One or Two at R-Health (Up to 65% Off).”
Another example that the Chicago Tribune reported on in January 2015, noted that 400,000 patients had appointments with doctors via webcam in 2014 and experts expect that number to double this year.
Large employers also have started offering the virtual doctor visits, via phone or web, as a benefit to their employees, including about 19 percent of large companies (500 or more employees) in the Chicago area, according to Mercer data. The growth is driven by the fact that people feel more comfortable with technology than ever before, experts say, and insurers are starting to pick up the tab.
Expect online sales and purchasing of Medical Memberships to occur at a faster rate than at bricks-and-mortar clinics in the coming months and years. Point-push-click-swipe-buy — these are solutions physicians should begin talking about with their patients, EHR and EMR solution providers. Very soon, the vast majority of medical purchases and physician appointment scheduling will be made online vs. in physical locations.
