Price Chopper makes doctors available via video

With telemedicine, diagnosis for a fee at the supermarket
  
By Claire Hughes
  Published 10:44 pm, Thursday, January 28, 2016


Ever wish you could get a prescription when you're right there at the pharmacy to buy medicine?

The Glenmont Price Chopper is one of five of the Schenectady-based chain's stores launching an experiment with telemedicine that will allow you to do just that. Doctors will be available by videoconference to diagnose symptoms, dispense advice and prescribe medications for common non-emergency ailments like cold, flu, sinus infections, pink eye and common rashes.



The service will be provided by Doctor on Demand, a national telemedicine company. Doctors who field calls from New York patients must have a license to practice in the state, even if they are in another part of the country, according to Kathy Bryant, vice president of pharmacy for the Golub Corp., Price Chopper's corporate parent.

A 15-minute consultation costs up to $40, and some insurance policies may cover the service.

People with emergencies or problems that require an in-person diagnosis will be referred elsewhere, Bryant said.

"If a patient presented to the health station with severe chest pain," Bryant said, "the pharmacist would intervene, call 911 and get that patient taken care of."

The new telemedicine option continues a trend at supermarkets around the country in offering health and wellness options to customers. In a 2014 survey, the Food Marketing Institute, a national trade association, found 95 percent of its members provide health screenings at their stores.

Telemedicine is easier to implement than the walk-in clinics that Golub has tried at some of its upscale Market 32 locations.

The remote service is not seen as a replacement for walk-in clinics, but as a complement to them, at the chain's older Price Chopper stores.

Golub's successful walk-in clinic in Pittsfield, operated by Berkshire Health Systems, is the model for elsewhere, Bryant said. Golub is also working on partnerships with medical providers to offer walk-in clinics in Clifton Park and Wilton. The clinic at its Latham supermarket closed several months ago after a partnership with Ellis Medicine failed; Bryant said the company plans to find a new partner.

Besides Glenmont, the other four Price Choppers telemedicine pilot programs are in Fulton, Johnstown, Poughkeepsie and Bennington, Vt.

With a shortage of primary care doctors and Americans' growing expectation of convenience, there is probably room in health care for telemedicine at the supermarket, said Dr. Lou Snitkoff, chief medical officer at CapitalCare Medical Group.

"There's a role for it, if it's done cautiously, under appropriate circumstances," Snitkoff said. "There are some commonsense aspects of this."

Snitkoff cautioned that there are times when only an in-person consultation with a doctor will do.

A rash can be tricky to diagnose, for instance. It might be important, for instance, to know if a rash is raised or flat, and that might not be obvious via video. If you're worried you have pneumonia, you want to see someone who can listen to your breathing.

Doctors consulted over videoconference should be willing to share their credentials with you, Snitkoff said. And patients should expect to be asked some questions critical for a doctor to make the right call: How long have you felt ill? When did it start? What makes it worse? What other conditions do you have? What kind of medicine to do you take?

"If you don't get the sense that someone is asking you the kind of questions a health care practitioner would be expected to ask, that would be a red flag," Snitkoff said.


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