At DocSpot, our mission is to connect people with the right health care by helping them navigate publicly available information. We believe the first step of that mission is to help connect people with an appropriate medical provider, and we look forward to helping people navigate other aspects of their care as the opportunities arise. We are just at the start of that mission, so we hope you will come back often to see how things are developing.
An underlying philosophy of our work is that right care means different things to different people. We also recognize that doctors are multidimensional people. So, instead of trying to determine which doctors are "better" than others, we offer a variety of filter options that individuals can apply to more quickly discover providers that fit their needs.
February 13, 2014
This site will be taken offline tonight (February 13, 2014, after 9 PM PST). Hopefully, the site will be back up within a couple of hours.
For those curious, we'll be changing colocation facilities.
Update: the move was successful.
February 07, 2014
Those of you who visit regularly might have noticed that the search form on the front page has changed. We tried to make the form slightly more compact by merging the label of the search boxes into the same line as the search boxes themselves. We also alphabetized the popular specialties below the search boxes (they used to be listed roughly in order of popularity).
On the profile page, we also added buttons to make it easier to share a profile on popular social media channels, or via e-mail.
As always, we're open to hearing how we can improve the user interface -- feel free to let us know any thoughts you have.
February 02, 2014
An interesting survey of nearly 2,000 adults show that younger Americans are more likely to seek and use health care quality and cost information than older Americans. Over half of the surveyed who are between 25 and 34 years old looked for quality ratings, while only 23% of those surveyed who were between 55 and 64 years old did the same. The younger respondents were also more likely to ask about cost.
Fortunately, more information is becoming available. Medicare announced that they will begin releasing some information about individual providers. Likewise, South Carolina will begin posting hospital pricing information online. Hopefully, more and more information will become available so that consumers can make better decisions about their medical care.
January 24, 2014
Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini is quoted as saying that the health insurance market of 2020 will be "a fundamentally different marketplace than today." Ominously, Mr. Bertolini said that "Advertising is the game." Mr. Bertolini's assumption seems to be that health insurance companies won't be able to differentiate themselves on product or cost.
It's a sad time for the consumers when companies no longer feel that they can differentiate themselves by offering a superior product or at least by offering superior value. Those advertising dollars mean higher overhead for the consumer without tangible benefit. Personally, it seems that health insurance companies have a long way to go before succumbing to the notion of being a pure commodity. For example, how about an effective and simple-to-use cost transparency tool that helps patients select which providers to visit? Or, what about policies that encourage healthier habits? There seem to be tremendous opportunities for innovation.
January 17, 2014
Dr. Leana Wen started a campaign among health care professionals, encouraging them to voluntarily pledge to always disclose any potential conflict of interests (e.g. payments from pharmaceutical companies). It is interesting to note that while the campaign is not lobbying for regulatory reform, Dr. Wen has received hostile responses from her colleagues. Someone who is too busy or is simply opposed to personally revealing potential conflicts of interests could simply choose not to participate -- so, why the animosity?
Dr. Wen addresses some of the arguments that have been put forth, including the paternalistic view that patients basically "can't handle the truth." We agree with her that it "should be up to the patients to decide what is relevant to them." Indeed, we look forward to when CMS will enable greater transparency regarding a physicians' financial relationships.
