"Darren Gold had a stomach virus the first time he used an app called Heal to summon a doctor to his Beverly Hills home. He liked the Stanford-trained doctor who showed up so much that he called Heal again when his 2-year-old son had a fever, and again when the whole family had colds.

The charges—$99 each for the first two visits; $200 for the family—weren’t covered by insurance, but Mr. Gold, who owns a corrugated-box company, says that was still a bargain compared with taking time off work to go to the doctor. “Now, whenever my son bumps himself, he says, ‘Daddy, we need to get the doctor here,’ ” Mr. Gold says."

Read more at The Wall Street Journal

"If you've ever waited to see a specialist in the emergency room, you'll be happy to know that a new app, the so-called "Instagram for doctors" could put a specialist at your doctor's fingertips in minutes rather than hours.   

The app, called Figure 1, allows doctors around the world to upload anonymous photos of their most compelling (and confusing) cases to a photo sharing platform with goals of trading information and asking for advice. 

"Images and learning medicine go hand in hand," said Dr. Josh Landy, the app's creator and a doctor in an intensive care unit in Toronto. "Images have been used in medicine to teach and learn for thousands of years." "

Read more on Huffington Post

"Pager, a Manhattan-based doctor-on-demand service, has raised $14 million in Series A funding from Maryland-based New Enterprise Associates and Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures.

The funding will be used to expand to cities outside New York, including San Francisco within two months, and to upgrade the company's technology, said co-founders Gaspard de Dreuzy and Philip Eytan. Mr. de Dreuzy and Mr. Eytan founded the company in May 2014 with Oscar Salazar, a co-founder of Uber. Other investors in the round included Goodwater Capital, Lux Capital and Montage Ventures.

The service, available in all five boroughs, gives patients the option of forgoing the emergency room or an urgent-care center and summoning a doctor for a house call for treatment of, for example, common infections such as bronchitis. A home visit costs $50 for first-time users and $200 thereafter. Patients can consult a doctor by phone for $25 and exchange text messages with photos in the case of a condition such as a rash or insect bite."

Read more on Craine's New York Business

"As the state prepares to unveil an enhanced prescription drug database next week, some health providers say it will be incompatible with their computer systems, hobbling their access to a tool meant to combat drug abuse.

The database, called the Controlled Substances Utilization Review and Evaluation System, or CURES, tracks prescriptions for certain narcotics. After a Times investigation found that it was underused and underfunded, legislators increased funding for the system in 2013.

The $3-million upgrade is set to roll out July 1, but a compatibility problem with certain web browsers may make it impossible for some doctors to use it. The California Medical Assn. sent a memo to its members last week warning that thousands of physicians could lose access to the system.

The new version of CURES will not work with older versions of Internet Explorer. Some health systems say newer browsers will not work with their electronic records."

Continue reading on L.A. Times