When the Doctor's Appointment Comes to Your Desk

People are using a new app to coordinate doctor's visits at their desks. The app is called Pager, a sort of Uber for doctors, or Seamless for sick workers, or pick your startup analogy. Pager, based in New York, launched a little over a year ago as a modern twist on the old-fashioned house call. Instead of sitting in the emergency room or scheduling a far-off visit to the doctor, busy ailing people can tap their phone and get doctors and nurses affiliated with major New York City health systems to their door in two hours or less. Most people use the app for in-home care, but Pager says it has seen thousands of workplace users. Similar services, such as Heal and Go2Nurse, are available in Los Angeles and Chicago, respectively. "You have a condition, infection, a minor injury, you’re in pain, you’re in stress -- you push a button and a doctor comes to you within an hour," said Gaspard de Dreuzy, Pager's 39-year-old CEO. Prices range from $50 for a phone consultation to $200 for an urgent-care in-person visit. The app doesn't accept insurance yet, although Pager says that's coming soon. For now, the service can be billed as an out-of-network provider.

Access to health care at work isn't entirely novel. Some bigger employers have on-site health clinics staffed with nurses. Benefits packages can include access to telemedicine services, like MDLive, Doctor on Demand, and American Well, which provide consultations over the phone or by video chat. "Over video you can treat 17 out of the top 20 things seen in urgent-care centers," said Doctor on Demand CEO Adam Jackson. Most Doctor on Demand consultations happen at home over video chat, but a quarter of organizations using the platform set up dedicated rooms with iPads for work. Like many perks of the modern office, telemedicine and doctors on demand are a productivity booster masquerading as a convenience. "You keep your employees healthy, and at the same time, if they’re sick, you make it so fast and convenient and efficient to access care that they spend less time going to the doctor's office," said Pager's Dreuzy.