On October 20, the residents of Yucatan and Quintana Roo in Mexico witnessed free telemedicine and telepsychology services for the first time ever. “It’s wonderful, because something that is good and free is rarely seen,” said one resident. “Many of us have the need and unfortunately we don’t have the resources to be able to make the consultations and even less with specialists.”
This is a new service given by the two-years-old startup doc.com, who has already served over 100,000 users in 20 Latin American countries and has recently opened an office in Florida. But what do they offer in exchange? Personal healthcare data.
In one of my earlier articles, I wrote about Shiru Café offered Brown University students “free” coffee in exchange for their names, emails, phone numbers and majors – and many very happy to trade that info. Doc.com is touching something far more important – not just for the patients but also for governments and the private industry.
In countries like Mexico, where the poverty line is close to 42%, public healthcare is bad and people have to wait hours in line to get treatment, this is considered a luxury. In fact, doc.com even pays the patients in its own coins when they share information such as their blood type and other personal characteristics.
“We provide government entities real-time data and analytics products where they can monitor their population in real time and send targeted messages to certain patients.