Consulting your family physician is finally moving into the 21st century and out of the doctor's office.
Since the dawn of e-mail, patients have been pleading for more doctors to offer medical advice online. No traffic jams, no long waits, no germ-infested offices with outdated magazines and bad elevator music.
There was always one major roadblock: Most health insurers wouldn't pay for it.
Until now.
In recent weeks, Aetna Inc., the nation's largest insurer, and Cigna Corp. have agreed to reimburse doctors for online visits. Other large insurers are expected to follow, experts say.
These new online services, which typically cost the same as a regular office visit, are aimed primarily at those who already have a doctor.
The virtual visits are considered best for follow-up consultations and treatment for minor ailments such as colds and sore throats.
But some specialists, including cardiologists and gynecologists, also see these e-mail tete-a-tetes as ideal for periodic checkups that don't require in-person visits.
"People can wait a long time to get in to see their primary-care doctor and longer for a specialist. . . . To have immediate access is huge," said Dr. Melissa Welch, Aetna's Northern California medical director.
As more doctors move online, others are looking further ahead and adding webcams to their online arsenal, even if the video quality remains spotty.
Dr. Christy Calderon, a family physician at Kaiser Permanente's Whittier office, conducts as many as half her appointments over the phone or online with a 3-inch camera affixed to her desktop. "It adds a more personal touch," she said.
Although actual doctor visits aren't likely to disappear, the recent moves are evidence that long-delayed efforts to bring American medicine into the digital age may be gaining momentum, experts say.
"Paying doctors to do more patient care over the Internet is a small but important step in a good direction," said David Cutler, a Harvard University healthcare economist. "It increases patient access and could significantly improve their satisfaction."
If so, it comes at an auspicious time.
Doctor visits in the United States have surged 20% in the last five years to more than 1.2 billion visits annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even as the population ages, the number of doctors is falling across the country, and experts predict that office wait times will increase in the coming years.
