EZaccessMD, a Rochester–based company, on May 1 started providing mobile telehealth services in the Syracuse area, partnering with a DeWitt firm to offer them. EZacccessMD describes itself as a mobile telehealth provider that brings diagnostics “right to the patient.” The firm is working with DeWitt–based K&A Services, Inc., a portable X-Ray provider,” to offer its […]
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EZaccessMD, a Rochester–based company, on May 1 started providing mobile telehealth services in the Syracuse area, partnering with a DeWitt firm to offer them.
EZacccessMD describes itself as a mobile telehealth provider that brings diagnostics “right to the patient.”
The firm is working with DeWitt–based K&A Services, Inc., a portable X-Ray provider,” to offer its services to area businesses and their employees.
“Our technologically advanced medical equipment and service delivery model goes far beyond traditional telehealth phone and video chat,” Lois Irwin, president of EZaccessMD, contended in a news release. “Consumers everywhere are embracing, and seeking out, services like groceries and home goods that can be delivered directly to their homes, so why not health care too? We’re offering an unparalleled level of health-care convenience that isn’t available anywhere else in the U.S., and we’re thrilled to bring it to Syracuse.”
How it works
The employer signs up with EZaccessMD for a group subscription at $15 to $18 per employee per month. The company’s employees are enrolled at no cost with no premium required. The employees can then begin using the service with physician care available “24/7/365” with no copay required.
The services include phone and video consults that can assess and diagnose, e-prescribe, order tests, and deploy the EZaccessMD mobile team.
With the mobile visits and services, providers can handle bedside exams for ear, nose, throat, and cardiac issues; basic laboratory work; electrocardiograms, or EKGs; X-rays; and ultrasounds.
The attending physician will then follow-up with a call to check on the patient’s condition.
Company expanding
EZaccessMD launched its employer model in 2016. After a “successful pilot year” with Rochester businesses in 2017, it started work to expand across New York state.
In addition to its service in the Syracuse area, EZaccessMD will also enter the Albany and Buffalo markets with partner organizations, launching this quarter. Expansion is also planned this year across the downstate area, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, according to the release.
“We are so excited to be partnering with EZaccessMD, this unique, outside the box concept is truly innovative, and breaking the mold of ‘traditional healthcare,” Emily Duckett, director of business development at K&A Services, exclaimed in the EZaccessMD release. “The cost of health care is becoming unmanageable. It is too expensive for employers to offer. It is too expensive for employees to participate. This is an amazing new way to bring basic care to all those people. It is opening so many doors, and we are thrilled for the opportunity to be involved.”
Overcoming usage barriers
Telemedicine is seen “across the globe as the future of health care,” EZaccessMD contends, “alleviating stress” on doctor’s offices and emergency rooms. However, only 5 percent of those who have telemedicine services as part of their employee health-care plans are using it.
A Feb. 7, 2018, article on the website of Telemedicine Magazine, titled “Three Reasons Telemedicine Utilization Remains So Low,” cited lack of education for end-users, emphasis on lowest upfront cost instead of best value, and unsatisfactory service as the main factors telemedicine hasn’t taken off yet.
EZaccessMD contends it “overcomes these barriers” by not only bringing free telehealth directly to the user with its mobile team but providing a cloud-based, mobile application platform that “does not require” subscriber codes or a lengthy log-in process to access services when needed.
These offerings have helped drive utilization rates of “more than 50 percent, 45 percent higher than traditional telemedicine,” the company says.
