Zócalo Public Square

Many of us turn to Google at the first sign of sickness, and over the past few years, more and more doctors have started to meet us there. Boutique practices promise easy e-mail correspondence with doctors — along with unlimited in-person access — for a flat fee of a few grand. Kaiser guarantees 24-hour response times for any inquiries made to doctors online. And countless websites, from WebMD to ailment-specific chat rooms, offer easy medical advice, sometimes over webcams. But for all the ease of access — and the improved care it could bring to rural or poor patients — most doctors don’t get paid for online consultations, and medical advice sites aren’t clearly regulated. What are the opportunities and dangers of online care? Zócalo invited a panel including Health 2.0 co-founder Indu Subaiya, co-chair of the Society for Participatory Medicine and e-Patients.net blogger Dave de Bronkart, One Medical Group Founder and CEO Thomas Lee, and MedSimple founder Francis Kong to consider how the Internet is changing