A bevy of start-ups are emerging to give people new ways to liberate them from the control of powerful health insurance companies — it’s about time.
Typically, you go to a doctor, and the doctor keeps your records on file and you can’t access them. But now people are demanding more freedom and transparency, and start-ups are responding.
The latest is Revolution Health, the start-up formed several years ago by AOL co-founder Steve Case, but which has been working quietly until its launch today. The company gave us access to the site a few weeks ago, and we’ve played with it. It is extensive, allowing you to build your records, find and compare local doctors, compare insurance companies (we’ve included a partial screenshot at bottom), help with claims and much more — it also wants to compete against the incumbent healthcare information and service portal, WebMD.
In fact, it is doing so much, that we agree with venture capitalist John Steuart, a specialist in healthcare who has looked closely at Revolution Health, when he says he can’t tell where the company plans to focus.
The most interesting Revolution Health appears to be offering — though it hasn’t made clear exactly how — is the ability to own and carry your own electronic health records (an idea Steuart finds worthy of venture backing, if it can be done right). That way, if you travel, or change providers, you can be treated wherever and by whoever you want. Also notable are Revolution Health’s service to find a cheap doctor, so that uninsured can avoid the emergency room. Moreover, it lets you compare insurance costs. This is useful, but it’s not clear how you build a business here (since there are several players in this area now).
Revolution is just the latest entrant, albeit one of the most talked about today, because of Case’s fame.
Other companies helping liberate parts of your personal health records (see good summary of the issue here) are CapMed and iHealthrecord.com. There’s another good summary of the industry in this Business 2.0 story.
Another is MedBillManager, a start-up in Nashville, TN that is run by three people, which gives you tools to track your bills, and a social networking feature that lets you compare insurance and other medical costs against that of other members. It is self-funded. Notably, managers of healthcare software players with competing products, Intuit ($49/year subscription) and SimoHealth (recently acquired by Revolution Health) have subscribed to MedBillManager’s testing version to see how it works, according to MedBillManager’s chief executive, Christopher Parks. Both Intuit and SimoHealth, however, are downloaded software programs instead accessible online, and don’t offer the social networking features. MedBillManager also wants you to be able to manage your records, but we didn’t see clearly how to do this in our test version.
Finally, there’s new start-up Taumed, of San Francisco, which is only related in that provides a way to search and ask for advice online, and find the latest healthcare news. However, it joins a host of competing search engines, in players like Dailystrength (see our story here), Kosmix and Healthline. Taumed tells VentureBeat it is raising a first round of capital.
Separately, the WSJ has a story today about Revolution Health (no link here, because the WSJ requires a subscription, but others covered the launch too), and the response by incumbent site, WebMD.
Revolution Health will offer telephone-consulting and digital-record services free for a year, to those who sign up within 90 days. The company says it eventually will charge $100 or so a year for a subscription to premium services. WebMD, in turn, released some tools today that look similar to those offered by Revolution Health — users will be able to store and maintain health records for free, and join forums about their health issues.
12 Comments
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Pran Kurup said:
Its nice to see more startups in this area. There should be a centralized place that maintains individual medical records (billing, claims etc.) and it should be accessible by any Dr./Dentist you go to. These days if you switch insurance providers you have to go through a monster survey. If you switch Dr.s you are burdened with more forms to fill out about your medical history. This is a complete pain/mess that should be streamlined using technology.
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RK said:
I have not seen anything earth shattering concept in Revolution/evolution wanna be health, they look like want to be a WebMD + Healthia + Medical records + social networking. So out of above WebMD worked, Healthia is Insurance company aggerators ?? may be you should ask David Cowan at Bessemer on that. Also you cannot rate doctors based on how they treated you from what you learned from WebMD etc.. each case is unique requires different treatment plan, if WebMD treatment plan worked than we would not need to spend money on buying insurance and paying doctor etc, that means we all collectively saving 14% of GDP, which happens to be health care cost today in USA!
On Medical records, I am not sure there is secure way of doing this no token/smart card sort system exist yet, for patient to feel safe on records.
Social Networking there is some possibility here for support group etc…
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Geoff said:
It sounds an excellent idea especially if it would allow me to record my BP and weight etc. It would then mean I could sell my own data to longitudinal studies etc
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David H said:
Where’s the new idea?
drkoop.com tried to have people take care of their own health via an electronic health record and it went down in flames within a year of its IPO in 1999. Revolution seems to be offering a mish-mash of whatever’s “hot” at the moment– syndicated content, social networking, PHR, you name it.
John Steuart is understating this company’s lack of focus.
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Joe Grossberg said:
“John Steuart is understating this company’s lack of focus.”
You mean like search, text advertising, email, blogging and maps? Google seems to be doing enviably well.
Yahoo! is worth almost $40B, and they could hardly be less focused.
What’s the obsession with “focus”? Why should we have to go to a totally different website for every health-related need?
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Meg A. Watt said:
Just a clarification, Intuit currently offers Quicken Medical Expense Manager at a ONE TIME discounted rate of $49. There is currently no annual subscription, as stated in the article. We have a new product coming out this year that will facilitate a new healthcare content consolidation and delivery system. For more info, check out our website: http://quicken.intuit.com/healthcare-management/
Meg A.Watt
Quicken Health Support Team Lead -
Vince Kuraitis said:
Some of the most interesting and insightful reading about Revolution is posted at the TechCrunch blog. It’s the comments that are worth scanning, mostly from tech savvy but non-healthcare folks –
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/01/03/aol-founders-next-startup-revolution-health/ My summary: Revolution is viewed lukewarmly, at bestI wanted to get a personal feel of the Revolution web site experience, so 10 minutes ago I signed up at http://www.revolutionhealth.com. “MyRevolution” is like a myspace for health care.
Here is the actual text I saw at “postings from my circle”:
i am currently a cocaine user,trying to quit. i have started haing sinus headaches,and my eyes swel…
posted on 01/23/2007 by anonymousi have been very off lately and light headed and dizzy and the doctors realized my sugar level was l…
posted on 01/23/2007 by Live Ride LoveIts not just what we eat, but also when we eat it, right? I’ve tried to start having a small snack …
posted on 01/23/2007 by LiamRMy favorite thing to do when stressed is crochet, but sometimes my wrist is too tired after 10+ hour…
posted on 01/23/2007 by anonymousHmmm…with which one of these folks do I want to strike up a conversation?
Working with a wide range of health technology companies, I would like to think of myself as a fan of Revolution, but I’m stuggling to do so at the moment.
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Kim Criswell said:
In response to Joe Grossberg’s comment above, “What’s the obsession with “focusâ€?”
and his point that “Google seems to be doing enviably well.” with its combo of “search, text advertising, email, blogging and maps?…
Yahoo! is worth almost $40B, and they could hardly be less focused.”Uh, Google and Yahoo were both VERY focused when they launched. Both were, initially, all about searching the Web. That’s why they succeeded to the point where they could diversify.
That’s the way successful company launches work: They start out with a clear focus. After they have gain momentum & status, then they grow by adding brand extensions.
Even AOL, the company that made Steve Case’s fortune, succeeded by being extremely focused at the start — all AOL did when it launched was provide an email interface that was easy enough that anyone could use it.
If you lack focus when you start out, your company never gains its footing. You don’t know where to put your resources in order to build momentum. You don’t have a clear message. You end up competing with yourself (i.e. one division/feature/employee competes with the next one) when you’d be better off differentiating from the OUTSIDE competition.
It sounds like Steve Case is spending $100 million essentially throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks… not exactly a recipe for success.
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Nagesh said:
Revolution caught my attention once I saw this clip on Google Video. Revolution seems to go beyond simply putting a web portal, to actually transform healthcare. For example, they support convenient care clinics ( as opposed to emergency rooms) - he compares it to Starbucks - imagine a starbucks for healthcare, whatever that is. The interview with Steve starts at 15:40 mark. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6507538008164695118
-Nagesh
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Nagesh said:
Little more detail here.. http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2007/01/22/aols-case-sparks-health-revolution.aspx
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bonnie-o said:
Americans and Canadians can get a free copy of their medical reports annually from http://www.MIB.com Medical Insurance Bureau)
Report also shows whose been looking at your medical reports.A forward-looking group trying to put healthcare back in the hands of patients is (Institute for healthcare improvement) http://www.ihi.org Comprised of docs, insurance cos, and patients. Free to join
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John Smith said:
Have heard from it before, but is indeed a very good comment. Thanks.
