Today we are opening blog.docasap.com to anyone who wants to use this forum for driving healthcare improvements. Just send us an email at info@docasap.com and we will publish your cause!

Its been 6 months  since we launched  DocAsap.com. Its amazing how time flies. Looking back, its been a great ride. Undoubtedly, the times that make us most proud today are when we helped patients see a doctor when they really needed. I remember one patient who sent sent us a note telling how she was sick all night, booked an appointment at 3:00am and saw the doctor at 8:00am. In my mind, thats exactly what we stand for and what we will continue to focus on.

While we helped people get timely doctor appointments, we also learned more and more about our health system. We learned how complex the system is and how important it is to look at its problems holistically. We understood the mindsets and behaviors that support or hinder positive change.

The learning drove us to also work and contribute towards other broader issues that our healthcare system is plagued with. Our preventive care campaign and our health awareness creation initiatives are couple worth mentioning. This blog became our mouthpiece and thanks to all of you who have been following it.

Thanks again for all your support. We will continue to keep our heads down and continue working to solve our healthcare system issues.

We live in an age where things move much faster than ever before. This decade showed us downs that at times felt like the tunnel with no light at the end. Be it the two largest economic recessions, terror attacks of unprecedented scale, wars that threatened the stability of our political systems, the earth quakes, tsunamis and the hurricanes or diseases such as bird flu and H1N1 flu that threatened to wipe the human race.

The same decade brought the ups we have never seen before, the communication revolution that brought all economies and countries on a level playing field, the rise of BRIC, the first African-American U.S. President, the landing on Mars and the breakthroughs of the human genome project that professed to cure us of diseases

Decades are long enough to change social political environments, economies and individual lives. This decade was sure that did it all.

DocAsap.com was born in the last few months of this decade and as we grow and keep focus on our mission for increased access to all, we are hoping for a decade of genecology research that cures cancer and AIDS and a decade of reformation and adoption of policies and systems that increase health care access. Your friends at DocAsap.com look at the next decade with hope and wish you a wonderful next decade.

Thought of listing some interesting top tens for the decade. Here are the Top ten medical breakthroughs and the Top ten scientific discoveries for the decade.

As the year comes to an end we though it would be interesting to reflect on the year which could very well be called the year of Health care.  Phenomenal debate! a debate that will change the way we spend more than 3 trillion dollars. A debate that will affect the baby boomers, the gen X and the gen Y alike. A debate that we all need to be part of.

Here are two point of views… you make your own call.

Pros -

Cons -

Last few weeks have been an exciting journey. While we always stayed committed to our core values of increasing access to care, we realized more and more the importance on prevention. We have launched our campaign in Washington DC and Philadelphia, help us spread the word on prevention.

DocAsap your partners in preventive health care!

The debate is on – five congressional committees, town hall meetings, president’s speeches, claims from the left, right and the middle – wow, everyone is thinking of the broken healthcare system. It’s interesting, because while we are talking of costs and changes to the system, we may be losing sight of what we as patients can do.

So, while everyone is talking of reforming our healthcare – we thought of putting some focus on reforming our health.

When I was growing up, I learned that prevention is better than cure. But, “A stitch in time saves nine” is all but a cliché today.

Studies show that the spend on chronic diseases is a huge percentage of our total healthcare spending. On top of it, the billions in productivity loss is not even measured. Chronic disease such as diabetes, heart diseases and obesity –that can all be reduced through healthy lifestyle and timely diagnosis continue to grow at an alarming rate. Prevention being considered more expensive on face of it is delayed.

However there are conclusive studies that spending today on chronic diseases completely dwarfs the money we could spend of the right preventive programs. For that, we at DocAsap are launching a preventive care campaign to promote healthy lifestyle and preventive checkups.

So folks, its time to get your routine workouts, quit junk food and smoking and get that postponed annual health checkup, mammogram, dental checkup and flu shot. Go see your doctor for a preventive checkup.

PS: we at DocAsap continue to be committed to prevention because we believe that a stitch in time can save nine, ten or may be even more.

Health care costs for many of us are a black box. All we know is that we pay a co-pay and see a doctor. We get surprises later in terms of bills and higher premiums from doctor practices and insurance companies. However, year after year we continue to have no upfront information on what the costs of our next doctor visit could be.

The notion of consumerism in health care is now gaining more and more traction. Simple reasons - We control our own costs.

DocAsap.com is one of the many initiatives towards driving consumerism in health care and we are happy to see how the ability and ease of searching and booking timely doctor appointments is helping promote timely health checkups for our community.

We found an informative video on consumer driven health care.

Today marks a big day for DocAsap. You can now book your primary care doctor appointments online at a click of a button.

The best part, you can see the doctor same day if you need to. While average wait time to see a doctor in Philadelphia is 27 days, on DocAsap you can book an appointment for as early as today.

So did you get an annual physical checkup done this year?

Book your appointment at DocAsap.

One of the major things we like to focus on in our blog is burgeoning changes in the quality/cost/usability/availability of healthcare.  A recent Wall Street Journal article tells us about one such change, which many have already experienced.  It seems that innovative insurance companies have streamlined the reimbursement process making it possible for doctor offices to immediately seek approval for coverage via the computer.  What used to take weeks and multiple pieces of snail-mail can now be resolved instantly, allowing the doctor to print out a more comprehensive bill to provide the patient; one which must be settled prior to leaving the office.  The article quotes a NaviNet questionaire that claims over half of their survey’s 650 respondents accept some form of pay beyond co-pays at the time of service.

Though we whole-heartedly appreciate the fact that patients can now have their bills resolved immediately without having to pore over much-delayed ‘explanations of reimbursement,’ the article points out that there is a potential hiccup in the new way of doing business.

Michael Gurion, an Atlanta attorney, says he didn’t object when an optometrist collected around $70 from him during a visit a few years ago for an exam and contact lenses. But months later, when he looked at his insurer’s explanation of benefits, he discovered he’d only owed about $25. He called the optometrist’s office and was told the difference was being kept by the practice as a credit toward future visits.
“I said, ‘Really? When were you going to tell me about this?’ ” says Mr. Gurion, 34, who says he wasn’t a regular patient and hadn’t planned to go to that optometrist again. In the end, Mr. Gurion says the office sent him a refund.

There appears to be a major cost and efficiency benefit to the way these offices are now settling payment, and at the very least, practice fees will become more transparent.  On the other hand, you may now be paying significantly more upfront for your healthcare, and will be expected to agree to a bill on-the-spot.  So, before your next office visit, make sure that you know the details of your insurance plan.  Spend a moment reviewing whatever bills you are presented and make sure that you check any supplemmental material you receive later in the mail.

Some key statistics we found at the National Coalation on healthcare

But where is all that money going. Found this interesting/informative video on YouTube.

The Obama administration has made comprehensive health-care reform one of its primary objectives.  With health-care costs and deductibles rising steadily, as well as the number of uninsured Americans, the probability is high that a bill of some form will be agreed upon this year.  Such an accomplishment would have a large affect upon the availability of health-care as well as the economy in general, with health-care spending accounting for a whopping 16.5% of GDP in 2008.  Unfortunately, there is no consensus on the direction that a successful bill should take.  An inability of both sides of Congress to agree on the legislation’s objectives have created a cloud of rhetoric and misinformation.   Luckily, it is a popular topic, and the LA Times has penned an article that clarifies the status of the endeavor in Congress.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-na-healthcare-qa27-2009jul27,0,7263096.story

A thought to consider:

Passage of a bill that meets President Obama’s objectives would extend insurance to many of the nearly 47 million uninsured in this country.  Without a corresponding increase in the supply of doctors, timeliness of doctor and dentists appointments will become an increasing problem.   DocAsap helps solve this shortage by making available appointment times instantly identifiable to the public.  If your doctor or dentist isn’t using DocAsap, make sure you will be able to get timely appointments by recommending our service.