Online Consult Vendor Expands Services

American Well, which provides an online patient/physician consultation platform for payers to offer to covered members, is rolling out new services.

The Boston-based vendor's Online Care system enables patients to conduct real-time Web consultations with available physicians within a payer's network. Click here for a more detailed explanation of how the technology works.

The company has developed a "team" edition that lets primary care physicians link to specialists during a patient encounter. The other new service connects physicians with their own patients so they can schedule a mix of "real" and online encounters with their patient panels.

During an interview at the 2010 AHIP Institute in Las Vegas, CEO Roy Schoenberg. M.D., ticked off a few other notable developments:

* Delta Airlines has announced the American Well service will be available to all its employees nationwide,

* Rite-Aid will use the platform to provide customers with in-store, real-time clinical consultations with its pharmacist network,

* BlueCross BlueShield of Hawaii is using American Well services for post-op consultations and care for surgical patients, many of who fly in from outlying islands to Honolulu for procedures and are difficult to see face-to-face after surgery, and

* Insurer WellPoint Inc. will offer the Online Care service in select markets beginning in late 2010.

--Greg Gillespie