Miami Firm Wants Doctor Shopping to be Web-friendly

South Florida Business Journal - June 9, 2006
by Brian Bandell

Finding a good doctor to see at a convenient time and for a competitive price often is a luck-of the-draw effort. It's especially tough for those without health plans to guide them and for people trying to find doctors expert at uninsured procedures, like cosmetic surgery.

But a Miami company, founded by the former South Florida market VP for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, is aiming to change that. Ken Sellers wants to make scheduling a medical appointment online as easy as purchasing airline tickets.

"Doctors understand the Internet is a tool that many of their patients already use for purchases," he said.

New World Health Corp.'s Web site, www.ehealthxchange.com, will allow patients to search a database of registered local doctors for available appointments and schedule them online. The appointments are automatically booked on the doctor's schedule, allowing the patient to book a visit even when the office is closed.

The site can help find doctors who see patients on weekends or have late hours, which is usually a trial-and-error process.

The Web site will also compare doctors by price for their most common services based on the patient's individual health coverage. Physician pricing information is often difficult to obtain without inquiring at multiple offices.

Patients who use Sellers' service must pay their out-of-pocket doctors' appointment costs up front online.

To help users measure doctor quality, the Web site will include biographical information and a star rating, plus a comments section written by patients.

With about 30 days to go before completing pre-release testing with two local doctor offices, Sellers has set a goal of enrolling about 4,000 of the 21,000 doctors in South Florida in the next three years. It costs doctors $500 a year and patients $8.95 a year, with their children under 15 included free.

Sellers is the full owner of New World Health, but he's planning a private placement in the next 90 days, with a goal of raising $500,000 to fund the launch. Six investors have signed on so far, he said. Using part of the proceeds, he hopes to have six sales representatives and seven installers by next summer.