Thursday, January 23, 2014

Forbes Living TV Asks Do Health Apps Really Help?

Need a Doc? There's an app for that.

There is an abundance of health apps available for anyone who wants them. Now there are new apps if you want to talk to a doctor and do so anonymously. We decided to check a few of them out and let readers know a little more about them.


HealthTap is a free app that allows users to send a question to the app and a doctor will answer it in about 24 hours. It is not 100% anonymous as it does ask for some personal information. And to be honest, sometimes we have an embarrassing health question we want an answer for and do not want to reveal ourselves.

Talk to Docs costs 99 cents and is anonymous. Tap the app to ask a question (voice or text) and then tap search to find the answer. The app picks out the keywords and runs a search on the HealthTaps answer database. The most relevant answers are sent back in a list.

Forbes Living TV notes that both of the above apps are available for iOS, Android and on the healthtaps.com website.

Doctor on Demand is a newer app we’ve been hearing a lot about lately. Since it is new, it is only available in 15 states (including New York, California, and Ohio), and only between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. It will expand to 40 states be available longer later in 2014. It is HIPPA compliant meaning privacy is paramount.

It is not free. Each 15 minutes costs $40 and it works well with those lucky to have Flexible Spending Accounts.

The user types in a few symptoms and can send images of symptoms, and be connected to a real doctor via video conferencing.

Health apps that track things like blood pressure, heart rate and general fitness tracking are useful and helpful to both the user and the healthcare provider.  There are many of them, and Forbes Living TV wants to know which ones work the best. Let us know.


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