So how these really work? Do you have experts in every sub-field of medicine lined up to analyse each case? Looking at your team, everyone seems to have title "Health Researcher" but most of them have no real degree in medicine or have any real experience with specific illness. Many seem to have experience and education that is not even remotely close to "health researcher" title let alone be legally licensed to prescribe anything to anyone medicine related in US. So how these people are supposed to read complex test reports, connect subtle dots and give me advice that is better than sub-sub-specialty practicing MD who sees 100s of patients day in day out? Website is full of PR quotes without any details of how it would stand up to claims it has been making.
My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
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Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#62Interesting idea, but site is not really usable on mobile...
The menus at the top use mouse-hover which doesn't make sense on phones, but the links at the bottom go to the same set of pages as the menus.
Tanks for responding. If curious, the hovers on the who we are page also caused me problems, and assets took a while to load.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#63So how these really work? Do you have experts in every sub-field of medicine lined up to analyse each case? Looking at your team, everyone seems to have title "Health Researcher" but most of them have no real degree in medicine or have any real experience with specific illness. Many seem to have experience and education that is not even remotely close to "health researcher" title let alone be legally licensed to pres…
It would be totally impractical to have full time people studying every sub-sub-sub-specialty: if we saw a person with rare disease X once a year, what would the specialist in X do the rest of the time? That's why we have a large network of outside experts we can consult when very domain-specific knowledge is needed.
Also, as someone who spends a lot of time working with doctors, the current medical system does not train people to look at things in detail and connect subtle dots - it trains people to run around doing everything as quickly as they possibly can. (Ask anyone who's in residency if you don't believe me.) A significant part of our advantage is that we can spend much more time on a single patient than a standard ten-minute consultation.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#64You definitely need a better landing page. Plus your pricing page needs work. Since this is not a cheap service, I would test a version that did not post prices but encouraged inquiries.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are a good deal of misdiagnoses that cause more months of suffering, especially with diseases like Crohn's disease. Maybe a service like this could prevent that with the help of a more accurate up front diagnosis. Diseases aren't as rare as people tend to think (~1.5 million with a digestive disease in the U.S. alone). That said, here are a couple things which make me skeptical about this: 1) They make claims i…
Some things that are labeled "alternative medicine" have actual studies, with decent sample sizes and good methodologies, showing that they work. These things are worth paying attention to. The rest don't meet our standards and get ignored.
Most things with evidence are readily accepted in modern medicine. Is there an alternative medicine treatment with good evidence that is nevertheless rejected by modern medicine that you can think of as an example?
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost certainly none.
One of the deficiencies of US healthcare. Insurance providers will spend a lot of money telling you, advertising aimed at "taking better care of yourself" (that they should "need" to do so is a different, though sad, indictment). Go ahead, then. Tell 90% of insurance carriers that you have committed to, documented yoga, gym attendance, walks every day. Ask them what premium reduction they're prepared to offer as a re…
> Go ahead, then. Tell 90% of insurance carriers that you have committed to, documented yoga, gym attendance, walks every day. Ask them what premium reduction they're prepared to offer as a result. Be ready to hold the phone away from your ear as they laugh.
I don't know how widespread it is, but the two major insurance carriers in my area (Rochester, NY) both have plans where can earn credits (up to ~$500) for healthy behaviour - gym memberships, yoga, etc.
> The preponderance of a population to have this condition, and ergo this average healthcare cost, hasn't increased by virtue of him wanting insurance. But you watch, as a carrier will deny him (or at least subject him to extensive waitlisting).
This, definitely. I know at least one person denied health insurance due to seeing a therapist for three months while having a rough spot in high school. It was nearly a decade ago and the therapist wrote a letter along the lines of "situational, no ongoing issue, no condition remains". No dice.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#67MD here. The headline on your webpage: "For serious medical conditions, you need direct access to the world’s best researchers." [my emphasis added]
Pardon my skepticism, but that sentence and the rest of your not-functioning-very-well website smell of nothing more than an attempt to ripoff very vulnerable people, and other marketing bullshit.
But do please prove me wrong - kindly link to the world-class research your docs and researchers have done thus far.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#68You definitely need a better landing page. Plus your pricing page needs work. Since this is not a cheap service, I would test a version that did not post prices but encouraged inquiries.
It's probably worth testing, but as hackers and web users we all can't stand websites that don't list prices.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#69Kevin, It seems that the Singularity Institute also reads James Altucher: http://www.jamesaltucher.com/what-is-the-quickest-way-to-mak... . My guess is that your "productize step" is to also use your researchers to train a specialized medical search engine you'll keep on the back-end (sort of a Mahalo+Watson). If that isn't what you're doing, let me know. Maybe I can help get you there.
Yup, there are all sorts of interesting problems in solving the back end problems of organizing our research.
Re: My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think
#70So how these really work? Do you have experts in every sub-field of medicine lined up to analyse each case? Looking at your team, everyone seems to have title "Health Researcher" but most of them have no real degree in medicine or have any real experience with specific illness. Many seem to have experience and education that is not even remotely close to "health researcher" title let alone be legally licensed to pres…
It would be totally impractical to have full time people studying every sub-sub-sub-specialty: if we saw a person with rare disease X once a year, what would the specialist in X do the rest of the time? That's why we have a large network of outside experts we can consult when very domain-specific knowledge is needed. Also, as someone who spends a lot of time working with doctors, the current medical system does not t…
Well, standard consultation does not cost $5000. If I have $5000 to spend, why should I use this website as opposed to directly finding another expert (with real MD degree and hand-on experience) and get their second opinion? I'm not sure of equivalent hourly rate of doctors but even at $500 per hour, I should be able to get a real specialist to study my reports in-depth and take their couple of hours of consulting time for a fraction of the cost. Again website needs to make explicit how much it would cost, who would do the work and what are their credentials. Lot of statistics such as 50% of second opinions contradicts looks very bogus. Is it from a reliable source?