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Comment by xb95 | Hacker News Reader

This would help with the times I've just wanted to ask someone "so, does this shirt actually go with these pants, or am I totally crazy?"

All joking aside, this could be interesting. It makes me think of that service that existed for a while where you could ask a question of a topic area, and it would send an IM to people and ask them to answer it. I forget what it was called, but I used it for a little while.

The payment/HIPAA compliance aspect are pretty interesting, too. I would easily throw $50 at a 10 minute consult with a doctor instead of having to make an appointment and haul myself in to the local clinic. Particularly if said doctor could then fax a prescription for something completely boring but still not OTC to my local pharmacy.

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Are you thinking of Aardvark? I think Google bought that a while back and then discontinued it.

Yes, thank you! That's exactly it.

Aardvark was great at the time. I especially loved the integration with gmail, it made it very seamless to think about something and just drop a question in a couple of seconds. It's a shame they stopped it.

Said doctor should come to you, as is customary in many countries. Instead, in the US you have to drag your sick self in to see a physician. And pay a boatload for a 5 minute consult; ridiculous.

While I'm by no means a fan of the US health care system, it seems pretty wasteful for high-value doctors to be wasting their precious time travelling to see patients.

Perhaps videoconferencing could be a good option for simple cases (viagra, sleeping pills) while a medical pick-up system could be instituted for patients requiring in-person consultations, but lacking mobility or the urgency required for an ambulance.

It's usually not "high-value doctors".

Here in Uruguay, the lowest rung of doctors (which are the ones you get on call) are paid about U$ 1500/month. And they did at least 7 years of studies (which are tuition-free in Uruguay).

A lot of them are emigrating to Brazil of course.

> they did at least 7 years of studies (which are tuition-free in Uruguay).

It's not their wage that is important, it is the value of their skills and time. If two people must meet face to face, it is most efficient use of resources to have the least skilled person spend their time traveling.

So if I'm say, a top-tier nuclear physicist, the doc should come to me? Who makes the determination?

Price. That's in market based economy, of cause.

>I would easily throw $50 at a 10 minute consult with a doctor instead of having to make an appointment and haul myself in to the local clinic.

I remember hearing an NPR report recently about some doctors running their private practice similar to that. They were basically operating on a subscription model - they would come see you if needed, but for quick consults and the like, they'd do things like Skype calls to talk with their patients. Struck me as a very interesting idea.

EDIT:

This isn't the report I'm thinking of, but it's very similar:

http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-virtual-urgent-care-the-...

This is for urgent care, but as I said above, I've heard similar reports about private practices working this way.

You should consider http://coinmd.org then. They're cheaper and seem to give really good advice so far. It's anonymous for doctors though, so of course, there's a risk in that. However, I read through their faq and find their policy of selecting and working with doctors quite convincing.

There are other services like that. I think JustAnswer is one of them.

Wizpert (http://wizpert.com) is one as well.

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