To me, it seems that those who are asking/questioning the differences between MedCredits and the other projects are not performing adequate due diligence. From what I understand, some projects are hoping to become a 3rd party, connecting existing EMRs together (Patientory) or providing a service (Bowhead, MedCredits). There are also references to creating new EMRs, but I personally think that should be a secondary/tertiary goal as, as referenced in this thread, there are hundreds of EMRs already in existence. The lesser known EMRs typically target smaller clinics/facilities as the market share of medium-large hospitals already belong to EMRs such as Epic, Allscripts, etc. Projects such as Patientory face a hurdle of larger EMRs already collaborating to create a Health Information Exchange so that patient information can flow freely between organizations and systems.
Great summary of our position on EMRs. Tackling an EMR system outright is an uphill battle as EMR systems are pretty entrenched in hospital systems. Convincing administration at a corporate level to institute a new blockchain EMR is very challenging as thousands of man-hours go into switching EMRs. On the other hand, we believe that creating a medical services platform that offers advantages (both in cost and convenience) to the people that make up a health system (patients and doctors) is the better approach. We are building a platform that offers real utility as early as possible. From there, with a pool of patients and doctors, MedCredits will eventually expand to become an EMR and telemedicine platform--where health services and patient records are bundled on one platform (the way healthcare should be).
I feel this is a strong project because although Telemedicine (and preventative medicine) is the direction the United States (and perhaps other regions, as well) is heading, it is limited to demographics which presumably have established health care already as the initiatives with the most momentum are organizationally driven. This large gap (those who do not have health care) gave rise to services such as WebMD, and here in the Silicon Valley, start-ups pushing to create other tele health/Concierge Health services who are doing it without a blockchain.
Agreed. We expect our platform to be more affordable though as middlemen fees are cut, remittance is cheaper (digital currency), etc. thus incentivizing patients and doctors.
What are the plans around staffing the tele-derm/tele-health service? In order to keep use of this service accessible, would that require artificially keeping the value of MEDX tokens down or will it scale based on the current market value? Example: If MEDX becomes valued at $10 and MEDX servivces are ~100 MEDX, what benefits are there for a patient to use the MedCredits service over traditional services? If a scaling system is used, how would you present that to patients in a way that is easily digestible? How do you plan to interoperate with the other established EMRs? Lastly, are there any plans in addressing health insurance and it's historically low/non-existent reimbursement for tele-health services?
Medical doctors all over the world will be able to apply for verification as board certified dermatologists on the MedCredits platform. Independent agencies will verify board certification status. A reputation system will be in place to rate doctors. Patients will also have the option to opt for a discounted second opinion if unhappy with the first opinion.
Regarding cost, by connecting patients all over the world with doctors worldwide, we are distributing demand for physicians to bring down the cost of an "office visit." This creates an open market for price finding--doctors who charge excessive fees will be undercut by doctors who charge less. Doctors are also able to reduce overhead as MedCredits requires no additional use of resources ("middlemen fees") on the doctor's part; hence bringing down the cost as well.
As with many of these digital tokens, there is often significant volatility in the early days. For the first 6 months or 1000 cases, the marketing reserve of MEDX will be used to pay physicians for services (hence making the service free for patients). We expect the fee to be the equivalent of about $10 paid in MEDX per evaluation. To keep the platform simple we will initially use a 2-tier pricing system which will tie into the doctor’s reputation. However, after this we will release the open market pricing feature where doctors/patients determine the fair market price of the respective service. In the final release of the platform, we intend to allow the prices to scale depending on the price of MEDX as well as the demand for services.
Regarding interoperability with current EMR systems: By giving patients ownership of their medical data, they will be able to share their data with other hospitals/doctors. MedCredits will naturally transform into an EMR as its clinical services expand. Down the road, we foresee third parties offering to upload patient data from traditional EMRs to our platform in return for a small fee.
Like you said, the reimbursement structure for telemedicine services is not very robust. Initially our platform will be fee-for-service in teledermatology. Integrating insurance reimbursement would occur at a later date, but we foresee an advantage to insurance companies as this will allow the patients within network to receive evaluations at a discounted price. Eventually MEDX will also allow for the creation of DAOs where patients can pool their resources amongst themselves in order to cover their medical expenses thus eliminating another middleman.