From Bill Crounse, MD, Worldwide Health Director for the Microsoft Corporation, we read:
I received e-mail notification today from our Employee Benefits Group that a pilot between Microsoft and a well known Seattle healthcare delivery system is being expanded and that our healthcare insurer will start paying for “virtual visits” between Microsoft employees and their personal physicians.
No more details, but it’ll be interesting to follow developments here. I hope it just doesn’t come down to just email consults which is not really cutting edge although work still needs to be done in expanding this basic capability between patients and their doctors.
November 16, 2007 at 2:06 pm
The pilot program at Microsoft is based on reimbursement for structured e-mail exchanges between a physician and his or her patient. I was involved in a pilot project with Microsoft about 10 years ago where we tested true “virtual visits’ using Net Meeting audio and video connections, but at the time the technology was a bit too complex for wide adoption. All of that is now changed with advances in Unified Communication technology, VOIP, more ubiquitous broadband, etc. The day will surely come when “virtual visits” are routinely conducted between physicians and their patients with participating physicians appropriately reimbursed for their services. In the meantime, we are taking baby steps, but very important steps in the broader scheme of things.
Bill Crounse, MD
November 16, 2007 at 2:50 pm
[...] here’s Bill Crounse, MD, Worldwide Health Director for the Microsoft Corporation, response to my post on Microsoft’s new pilot program to have their health insurer pay for employee virtual [...]