Web network for your health care team to chat

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A Social Network for Your Doctor, Pharmacist and Insurer

By Kendra Marr, Washington Post Staff Writer

Saturday, August 16, 2008; D01

Imagine a virtual health clinic: Your lung doctor and heart specialist

can pull up your online medical profile and chat, via instant

messenger, about your medications. You schedule checkups online,

create a wellness journal or even rate your general practitioner.

WellNet Healthcare, a Bethesda health management company, is launching

the beta version of this social network, Point to Point Healthcare,

this month. Since 1994, WellNet has built its business collecting

detailed data on employees' medical and pharmacy activity so that

companies can better evaluate their corporate health plans.

WellNet's clients nationwide -- including Washington-area firms such

as Cos., Dewberry, and Kiplinger Washington Editors -- will

be among the first to test-drive the new system. It lets employees

create a personal network uniting their insurance claims manager with

multiple doctors and pharmacies to better coordinate treatments. An

online concierge helps workers find new specialists, and a message

system reminds them to pick up prescriptions.

Whether it all works remains to be seen.

WellNet must persuade its network of 300,000 primary-care doctors to

start working with patients on the Web.

" It depends how simple it is to use these online tools, " said ph

Heyman, chairman of the American Medical Association's board. " Most

physicians right now are on a hamster wheel. They have trouble keeping

up. If it means extra work, and it's not a time-saver, they're

generally not interested. "

Privacy advocates worry about the security of Web-based medical

records. Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights

Foundation, said it is impossible to regain your privacy should the

intimate details of your health be stolen and made public.

" It's not like financial identity theft, where someone steals your

Social Security number, date of birth, where you live. You can fix

that. It takes time and it's a nightmare, but it can be corrected, "

Peel said. " There isn't any way to fix a violation of your sensitive

health records. "

And others have reservations about what information employers will

have access to. WellNet said it plans to collect anonymous data

allowing employers to see, for instance, how many people are using

certain drugs and specialists -- something it already does under its

existing systems. The difference is that it would now do so in real

time by monitoring the social network. If a large percentage of a

workforce requires expensive diabetes medicine, but employees aren't

regularly filling prescriptions, WellNet said an employer can lower

the co-pay to make the drugs more affordable.

" It's just common sense, " said Lemer, WellNet's president.

Since WellNet deals with small and mid-sized companies, some worry

that it may be possible to uncover the identities of those nameless

employees. Or, instead of helping employees gain access to certain

medications, they could be coerced into buying cheaper, less-popular

generics.

" What if you have a very expensive employee who takes tons of

medicine? What does this mean? " Pam Dixon, executive director of the

World Privacy Forum, said about efforts similar to WellNet's. " These

are very sensitive areas. "

WellNet said it knows it is diving into turbulent waters. The company

said its online workspace will be guarded by the legal protections

specified by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act

(HIPAA) and the same online security used by the banking industry.

Much like Facebook users, Point to Point members, who must opt in, can

control who can see the different parts of their medical profile.

WellNet isn't alone in pursuing such a network. The online health

industry is growing rapidly. Internet titans like Google and Microsoft

have put resources toward popularizing online medical records.

Insurers have been adding more online tools to help their members

switch doctors and check co-pay information. Arlington start-up

HealthCentral, an online destination for medical information, links

people with a particular disease to relevant doctors and blogger-patients.

Revolution Health, founded by former AOL chairman Steve Case in the

District, aims to be a one-stop shop for health, offering online tools

that help individuals manage their own well-being. For employers, it

runs a telephone-based service where members can get help resolving

insurance quarrels, scheduling appointments and answering health

questions -- what Case once called " AAA for health care. "

Janice Algie, 's director of human resources, said she

wondered if her employees would use more online tools like Point to Point.

" It's difficult to get them involved in their own health care, " she

said. " Every time a claim is processed, whether it's health insurance

and dental insurance, it's submitted and tells them what they owe. I

can't tell you how many employees look at those. Even though they have

online access, they still don't look at them. "

But perhaps it's generational, Algie said. With few entry-level

positions, about 45 percent of 's workforce is age 40 and above.

Dell Nunaley, Dewberry's human resources director, said WellNet's

program might help guide employees, who are often bombarded with too

many health-care choices.

For now, to entice more users, WellNet will give companies the program

for free if they transfer their pharmacy benefits to WellNet. When it

opens this service to others early next year, it will start charging a

licensing fee.

" It's all about productivity, " said Henry Cha, chief executive of

Healthcare Interactive, a Glenwood software company that developed

Point to Point. " You're in a rat race. You already do online banking.

You shop online. You make payments online, just to make sure nothing

falls through the cracks. "

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