I still think back to my early days here at Healthcare IT Today when Practice Fusion came on stage offering a free EHR. It was a pretty astounding thing since most EHR were charging hundreds of thousands or even billions of dollars for their EHR. The idea of a free EHR just blew people’s minds.
What people didn’t realize was that there are a number of powerful business models that allow for free. The two most common are advertising/data and what we now call freemium. The first is something you’re likely familiar with since it’s how you’re able to use Google, Facebook, and Twitter for free along with millions of other sites and services. Google provides a free search service in exchange for the opportunity to advertise to you. Same with Facebook and their social media platform. In a more controversial way, some of these services will also sell your data in exchange for using their free system.
The second model is much less controversial. The Freemium model comes from a mashing of the words free and premium. This model offers a basic service for free and then you pay for advanced options. I’m sure you’ve experienced this in your life. It’s a great strategy since it allows a user to try the service before they buy it. Plus, in some cases, the free service is enough and there’s no need to upgrade. It behooves the company to create a premium service that is worth the upgrade.
When you look at all the telehealth companies in the market, doxy.me has definitely set itself as the “Free Telehealth” option for healthcare organizations. Although, it’s probably fairer to say that it has a freemium approach to providing live video telehealth services to companies that includes a free option and a number of paid versions. However, even their paid options are quite inexpensive relative to many telehealth companies.
To learn more about doxy.me and how they can offer a free and inexpensive telehealth solution to doctors, we sat down with Brandon Welch, CEO and Founder of doxy.me, to talk about what inspired him to create doxy.me and why he chose to offer a freemium telehealth solution.
Along with discussing free telehealth, I also ask Welch to share what the adoption curve has been like for doxy.me amidst COVID and where he thinks reimbursement and telehealth adoption will land long term. I was impressed by how laser focused doxy.me is in their product offering being a simple live video telehealth solution and how that allows them to keep costs low. I do also ask Welch if he thinks they’ll have to keep expanding their feature set and integrations to be able to be a long term telehealth solution for healthcare organizations. Welch also shares an announcement of what we can expect next from doxy.me in the near future.
Check out our video interview below to learn more about the free doxy.me telehealth solution.
For more information about doxy.me: https://doxy.me/
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