“Pager” the Uber-like App for Doctor’s House Calls

Can an app transform healthcare the way Uber and Lyft have changed the taxi/limo business? There has been an interesting experiment underway in New York City for the past two years or so, called the “Pager” app which is bringing back the old-fashioned tradition of the physician house call. Call it Dr. Marcus Welby with his black bag for the digital age…

One of the first online health portals I worked for (and one of the first in existence) was called “America’s Housecall Network”—it was transformed into more of a typical health website. But “Pager” is promising very different and very literal “house calls.”

 If you live in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and you download the “Pager” app, you are entitled access to a physician coming to your home between the hours of 8 am to 10 pm daily. The chief medical officer at Pager is Richard Boxer, MD, who has an impressive track record of his own—but an important co-founder is Oscar Salazar, one of the techies behind Uber.

Dr. Boxer was previously the chief medical officer of Teladoc, a company that connected doctors and patients via phone and online video/Skype or Facetime 24/7. Despite the acceptance of telehealth, there’s the obvious disadvantage of the personal touch required to do a physical examination. So Pager takes that next step…

 It remains to be seen in this on-demand, service-oriented culture where Americans buy milk through Amazon express delivery that physician housecalls will be a viable business model, but early returns are intriguing. A house call can run a minimum of $300 and there could be reimbursement issues depending on someone’s private insurance. For a parent with a sick child it may be worth every penny though. Online reviews of the app seem generally favorable.

Is this the future of healthcare? It’s hard to say yet—if only there were an app for predicting business trends accurately! Questions, comments, I’d love to hear from you…