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Founder and CEO of OhMD, Ethan Bechtel, wants to protect healthcare from HIPAA violations for free. In this day and age texting and other alternatives to phone calling are ideal for the average person in America. Many people outside of the healthcare field don’t know or understand that they cannot communicate with their doctors over SMS. With so many different communication applications coming out everyday, the average person doesn’t think much about texting their doctor. By using SMS to send protected health information is a violation of HIPAA. Ethan’s goal is to address this issue with OhMD.
What does OhMD allow me or my doctor to do?
With OhMD doctors and patients can communicate easily and efficiently without violating HIPAA. By using OhMD patients can have direct access to their practice and health information if they need it. For example if I go to a new Ophthalmologist for a new pair of prescription glasses, my new doctor will not have my old prescription on file. If I were using OhMD I could have easily requested my information and been able to give my new Ophthalmologist accurate information. If a similar exchange happened over SMS, it would be a HIPAA violation. Using SMS to send protected patient information (PHI) is a violation because it is not secure. With OhMD all your information is being sent of HIPAA certified channels as well as stored in your doctors EHR. With OhMD patients can access their information securely, and not have to worry about non-medical professionals accessing their information.
It’s clear that there is a disconnect between patients and Doctors in terms of the proper channels to communicate outside of calling in. Bechtel has addressed this with OhMD and will change the way people communicate in healthcare.
