Hacker News Reader

Comment by Herodotus38 | Hacker News Reader

It looks like your model uses immediate or nearly so text messaging after an interaction. Since a phone number is protected health information as per HIPAA, I'd be interested in how it's been setting a business associate contract? I imagine there is quite a bit of red tape. Are you able to set up one and use it for each clinical entity or does it require a bit of individualization?

View on HN

Indeed, you're right. It follows a similar model to services that do appointment reminders via text message, which is becoming very common.

The permission check becomes vital: it's part of the patient authorization at, for example, a first visit, and is best when also followed by a verbal authorization upon checkout. It's one of the big hurdles we're trying to overcome obviously, but we believe there are proper ways to do it and make it work within the boundaries of regulation and privacy. No good problem worth solving is without difficulties, right? :)

I wish you luck. I think your approach is far better than the mailed sheets of paper surveys I inevitably toss in the recycling bin that arrive 1-2 weeks after my children's appointments. Do you guys use any sort of incentive to boost responses?

Thanks! No incentives right now, as we don't want to bias the data. Response rates have been high enough though to blow other mediums away (by a factor of 5x roughly).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com