Singular Health

Health and Healthcare Marketplace for Patients and Providers

_{Copyright 2018 Garrett Smith}

Summary:

Patient health belongs to the patient. Doctors are professional expert service providers of human health. They are not authorities over patients. Management organizations reduce efficiency and limit quality of service. These can be largely replaced, giving doctors more freedom and financial incentive to provide the best care possible in a freer, more competetive marketplace.

Patient problems:

• Patients don't have ready access to their health records (diagnostics, referrals, notes, prescriptions, etc) across providers and provider networks is inconvenient and lossy.
• Medical records are sometimes transmitted insecurely, via email or SMS, in violation of HIPAA.
• Referrals and continuity of care are inconvenient and lossy.
• Finding updated available providers matching location and insurance coverage is hard.

Provider problems:

• Records lack diet, supplementation, and lifestyle data.
• Health records management is difficult and expensive for providers.
• Medical practice management and healthcare administration is difficult, expensive, and insufficient[1][2].
• Changes in insurance coverage, provider networks, or providers make all of the above harder, unnecessarily.
• Schedules are hard to maintain. Patients cancel or no-show and doctors are frequently late.
• Insurance claims are cumbersome.

Solution Synopsis:

Patients manage their own records with the app. Patients can search for providers by availability, distance, speciality, and insurance, and other criteria. Patients contact providers for scheduling. Patients share select records and media (photos, videos, files) with new or existing providers. Patients update PHI (diet, exercise, supplements) and biometric data (sleep and blood sugar trackers, etc).

Providers communicate and schedule directly with patients through the app, reducing or bypassing office staff. Contractual payments can reduce billing costs.

Expected impact:

Reduced cost of practice for physicians. Decreased cost of starting for medical practitioners leading to increased number of private practices and more innovative, emerging healthcare solutions to reach more people.

Improved quality of care, better health, and better quality of life, worldwide. Worldwide healthcare marketplace expected to be significantly impacted as providers will be able to assist those in third world countries. Countries that can provide competitive pricing have access to first world country marketplace and money.

Existing competing applications include B10S and OneRecord.

Core features:

• Medical records online, always accessible by patients
• Ratings and reviews for providers
• Diagnostic results published
• Calendar and Scheduling

For patients:

• Access medical records (including doctors' notes)
• Find and providers contact providers and send them data and records (imaging, etc)
• Self refer or inquire a GP for low-cost e-referrals
• Request, confirm, or cancel appointments
• Send prescriptions to the pharmacy
• Find and contact a diagnostic facility, MRI, bloodwork, etc.
• Review providers

For providers:

• Advertise services descriptively, including procedures performed.
• Define rules for payment and cancellation policies
• Publish results to the application (no more faxes, mailing records, etc)
• Request, confirm, or cancel appointments
• Messaging and bulk notifications (e.g. OOO, not spam).

2.0 features:

• Dispute resolution for unprofessionalism, unpunctuality
• Notifications for diagnostic results, appointments, messages
• Payment system ensures that providers receive payment for no-shows

Monetization

• Subscriptions for providers and patients
• Secure in in-app advertisement
• Payment processing fees (~3-5%) for providers (for payment and visits)

References

[1] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2674671?resultClick=1
[2] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2007/05/31/whats-wrong-with-doctors/