HMSA is the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee in Hawaii. Online Care is available for all residents of the state. HMSA members can have a consultation for $10; the fee for nonmembers is $45.
The initiative is designed to improve access to care, particularly in rural areas, by giving access to credentialed participating physicians in the Blues plan's provider network. After extensive testing, more than 140 multi-specialty physicians are participating as the service is made available statewide. HMSA expects to add more types of providers to the service including psychologists, advanced practice nurses and midwives.
The service uses the online physician/patient consulting technology of American Well, Boston. It is integrated with the HealthVault technology of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. to enable the tracking and sharing of data from multiple sources.
More information is available at hsma.com.
--Joseph Goedert
Be the first to comment on this post using the section below.