Whatever your symptom, WebMD says you have cancer.
Its a long-running joke that underscores the distrust of perhaps the top source of medical advice, stemming from a confusing site clogged with ads thats been criticized for questionable information and pushing pills from its sponsors.Health Guide is the new medical handbook for the internet, where 30% of content is written by doctors and 100% is reviewed by them.
On a single clean, coherent page for each condition, it lays out a tl;dr summary, what the ailment really is, how to spot the symptoms and what you need for treatment.
Rather than pushing you to nervously keep clicking, it just wants to answer the question.Health Guide officially launches today.
It was built by digital pharmacy Ro, which has raised $176 million for medicine brands Ro for mens health, Rory for womens health and Zero for smoking cessation.
With Ro, patients can get a $15 telemedicine consultation with a doctor, receive an instant prescription and have it filled and sent to you from the startups in-house pharmacy operating in all 50 states.
A competitor to Hims - Hers, Ro scored a $500 million valuation last year.Rather than aggressively hawking its own products at the end of articles, Health Guide just lists the medications you could take, insists you ask a doctor whats right and leaves it up to you to choose where to buy.
Ro founder Zachariah Reitano calls Health Guide a significant investment in trust.
Theres not a clear ROI (return on investment) to it but its one of those long-term bets ..
Providing education to patients will serve Ro really well in the long-run.
He acknowledges the suspicions of self-dealing, and says if we dont do this correctly, it can hurt more than it can help.On Health Guide you can search for specific conditions, browse categories like diabetes or hair loss and browse featured articles like Proven ways to increase the density of your bones or How do you test for gonorrhea.
There are no banner ads, so your search about the flu or testosterone wont immediately lead to you being bombarded with promotions for Mucinex or dicey supplements.
On these other sites .you have [advertisers] with unregulated supplements and services that are the highest bidder beside medical information, which creates a lot of distrust.The simplicity and accuracy of Health Guide has already attracted a sizable audience.
Its on pace to reach 30 million readers this year, with 25% being women despite Ros initial focus on aiding men with erectile dysfunction.
It already ranks in the top 10 Google results for 300 medical questions.
The no-filler entries come signed by the specific doctors that wrote or approved them, and Ro pledges to have them reviewed and updated at least once per year.
At the bottom are links to all the original source material, including peer-reviewed medical journals.Reitano tells me that the idea from Health Guide came after Ros physicians and customer service were bombarded with the same patient questions over and over.
The easiest move was to put all the answers on an open site they could send patients to.
A major goal was to debunk hoaxes other sites often dont address directly.
For something like vaccines where there is a potential for misinformation, youll see us take a strong stance.
We wont let the potential for misinformation spread through Health Guide.One thing Health Guide is missing that could keep people coming back to WebMD is a symptom checker.
Right now its better at research on major conditions or lifestyle choices than figuring out why your throats sore.
But given its day one and Ro has tons of funding, it has plenty of time to improve.
Theres sure to be concerns about how it collects data and what treatments Health Guide lists.
So as a precaution, it never forcefully makes recommendations besides asking a doctor for personalized advice, and theres just one button atop the site for visiting its medication marketplace.Ro is trying to move fast as the ePharmacy space heats up.
It plans to launch 10 more products in the next two quarters, with a focus on Rory for women.
It just struck an exclusive deal with Pfizer to provide Roman customers with generic Viagra, offering clear supply chain transparency around a drug thats often counterfeited.
And thanks to its licenses across all states, its helping new weight loss treatment Plenity launch nationwide atop its diagnosis, prescription and fulfillment technology.Yet Reitano sees space for multiple startups to succeed in replacing embarrassing and inconvenient in-person trips to the doctor or drug store.
It might be a somewhat cheesy answer but ..
the best thing about competition is it makes everyone build a better experience for patients, he says, citing NURX and PillClub enhancing birth control access.
I think all this innovation in digital health its an absolutely massive market.
No ones taking market share from someone else.
Were raising the bar for care.