All is not Well

American Well is a pioneering telehealth company. It's responsible for a number of innovations --its principal advance is to work closely with health plans to deploy existing provider networks. I conducted an interview with the CEO, Roy Schoenberg last year and consider myself a fan.However, the New York Times (Mental Health for the Military Over the Web) seems to have fallen all over itself in praise of the company.

When we first wrote about American Well, a start-up that offers doctor visits over a webcam, a number of the Bits readers suggested that the service seemed well-suited to visits with therapists.The military will soon use American Well to do just that. It will be the first time that online care has been used to deliver mental health services, according to American Well.

However, as a physician pointed out to me:

That claim is ridiculous.  Individual mental health providers have been using Skype with video to do this for years.  They just didn't issue press releases.