Doctor on Demand, a telemedicine startup that uses video consultation (with real doctors) to tell you what’s wrong with you, raised $74m.
The San Francisco-based startup founded by Dr. Phil — no, he’s not a medical doctor — is one of several startups pursuing telemedicine, an industry projected to grow to $64B by 2022.
Somewhere in between WebMD and a waiting room
Due to rising costs of healthcare, 1 in 4 Americans chooses not to visit doctor’s offices — taking their chances with the little boo-boos, and visiting expensive urgent care facilities when they really can’t walk it off.
But Doctor on Demand’s physicians (who are board-certified) can treat 90% of the cases that end up in urgent care, and for $300 less. By offering inexpensive, on-demand service 24/7 — and accepting cash or major health insurance — DoD hopes to win over millions of skeptics.
Healthcare’s got a fever…
And the only prescription is more investment in on-demand medicine. At least that’s what Goldman Sachs, Shasta Ventures, Tenaya Capital, and some other fat checkbooks — who all threw money into DoD’s pot — seem to think.
Some competitors of Doctor on Demand are even more well funded — Clover Health, $130m; Outcome Health, $500m — and the sector as a whole received $4.5B in investment in 2017.