“At night, when I’m trying to go to sleep, there’s so much phlegm in my throat that it takes 15-25 attempts to cough it all up before my throat is clear.
What do you suggest to help with this?”
An email sent to Instant Consult on 31 Dec. 23.
A response received on 31 Dec. 23.
Below is a list of 15 Australian organisations who offer consultations with Australian GPs – all that we’ve been able to find so far. (Please let us know of any others you’re aware of, so that we can add them to the list.) We expect that eventually we’ll all have a favourite organisation for online GP consultations, (we only need one,) just as we all have a favourite GP for face-to-face consultations, but that finding the best will take a bit of work, with which we’re trying to help. And that eventually we’ll have our favourite Specialists as well.
Email us at info@healthcare.online.help
Doctors on Demand – https://www.doctorsondemand.com.au – simple online form -$60/$90
Healthcare on Collins – https://healthcareoncollins.com.au – simple online form – not clear
Hola Health – https://hola.health – support@hola.health, but a number of emails sent using this email address remain unanswered. $35/$45
Hub.Health – https://hub.health – simple online form, but Hub.Health doesn’t respond $35
Instant Consult – support@instantconsult.com.au
Instant Scripts – https://www.instantscripts.com.au – no ordinary email address or simple online form, but Chat. $49
Livehealth Online – https://livehealthonline.com – help@livehealthonline.com – $55 or less per visit
Medmate – https://www.medmate.com.au – simple online form – $25
Our Sage – https://www.oursage.com.au – simple online form – $45
Prime Medic – https://www.primemedic.com.au – simple online form – $34.99
SwiftDoc – https://swiftdoc.com – simple online form – $59 (10 minutes)
TeledocAustralia – https://teledocaustralia.com.au – info@teledocaustralia.com.au – $45
Updoc – https://www.updoc.com.au – simple online form – from $39.95
Urgent Scripts – https://urgentscripts.com.au – info@urgentscripts.com.au – weekdays $50, weekends and holidays $75
Qoctor – https://www.qoctor.com.au – info@qoctor.com.au – $49.99
One of our readers reports that, when he had a personal consultation with the practitioners at Hub.Health, (at a cost of $35,) he got this in response:-
and that he responded with this 6 days ago.
On Tue. 23 Jan. 24 – email not even acknowledged.
Our aim with this website is to help our readers locate the best medical practices to deal with when it comes to them getting help with their health over the internet and to avoid those practices with which there are problems.
The fact is, that, in this world as it is, organisations that are outright crooks are more likely to be successful than organisations with our aims
A prime example is Just Answer.
Just Answer is all over the internet, with incredibly high ratings, etc. etc. etc.
The facts are that when you seek help from Just Answer:-
(1) Before you can get any help, you are required to provide a small upfront deposit, like $2, and there are so many claims on the internet that the details provided in providing this are used to take money to which they are not entitled.
(2) When you seek help you are directed to someone of Just Answers’ choosing – you don’t get to choose who that someone is. No doubt Just Answer collects money from people on the basis of how many requests for help are referred to them, whether they are the best ones to provide the help requested or not.
When we say that they are “outright crooks” – the truth, of course, is that they are the smart ones. The way to make the most money is to do exactly what they’re doing. There’s no money to be made in what we’re doing.
The problem is that we, the people, just don’t care!!!
We have a very strong view, that if you’re looking for a person or organisation to deal with, unless an organisation or a person has an ordinary email address readily available, and emails sent using it elicit reasonable responses, that you should keep looking for a person or organisation that does. There are enough medical practices that fulfil this requirement for us not to be bothered with those that don’t.
Medmate doesn’t have an ordinary email address – just forms. We’ve had no success in filling in any of their forms to their satisfaction – we just kept being told we haven’t filled the form in properly.
Of course, what such organisations and people are all about is saving the expense of having people to answer any ordinary emails they might get.
Perhaps such people are hard to find?
Something that fascinates us about organisations like Medmate – that someone high up, perhaps even the CEO, obviously never goes through the exercise of finding out what it’s like for potential clients to start dealing with them. With organisations like MedMate, if they did, they’d get a shock.
We’re certainly continuing our searches for better organisations.
Email us: info@questionsmisc.info.
Website: https://www.hola.health.
Contact: support@hola.health.
Location: Perth, Western Australia.
Hours: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Wait time: 15 minutes, (Average.)
FROM OUR RESEARCH, HubHealth offers consultations over the phone with Nurse Practitioners at a cost of $35. And then, if any medicines are prescribed, efficient delivery of these medicines to any address you might nominate. And for those who are hard of hearing, and perhaps for others, their advices are provided in writing.
And for those who prefer to deal with those practices who list their particular problems in a “What we Treat” section, HubHealth has a quite extensive lists of “What we Treat.”
But HubHealth is not for those who prefer dealing with Doctors – they offer no guarantees that any consultations will end up being with other than Nurse Practitioners.
Email us: info@questionsmisc.info.
Website: https://hub.health
Contact: help@hub.health.
On their website, this is described as the first of “3 easy steps to help you.”
As we keep stressing, we are in the very early stages of creating this website – but, from our observations, this step was/is unusual. With most websites, it would appear that, at the commencement of a consultation, the person you are consulting knows nothing about you. This is not how it is with HubHealth – at the commencement of a consultation the person you are consulting knows a great deal about you, because you’ve answered a number of questions – in our case, about 15. Surely this would add to the likelihood that what the person you were consulting had to say was relevant and helpful?
Once we had answered all their questions, a time was set when one of their people would ring and a Telehealth consultation would begin.
In our case, we were not sure that a phone call would work, as we had been becoming more and more deaf lately. And sure enough, we couldn’t understand a word he said. But he just carried on regardless, providing us with a letter in writing. We are still considering the implications of this.
This is the letter we got.
Isn’t that what we all want? – advices in writing in response to our information?
One matter concerns us. It is set out in this email, sent, using their email form, before we found their ordinary email address.
Fri. 8 Jan. 2024 – an email received from HubHealth’s Tom confirming that a consultation with HubHeath could end up being with either a Doctor or a Nurse Practitioner depending on which came next.
Most of the healthcare websites seem to favour what are called, “Telehealth consultations” – providing consultations with a healthcare provider by phone or video call. In the very nature of things, characteristic of these is that the only information or knowledge the healthcare provider ever has about the patient they are providing advice and information to, is what they get from the patient at the beginning of the consultation. This is almost certainly going be superficial, especially if the total consultation is only going to last 8 minutes, meaning that, almost certainly, the advice will be superficial.
Of course, this can be remedied if there is provision for the patient to provide information about himself or herself, or, if the practitioner takes the initiative to seek information from the patient, before the consultation takes place.
We will be seeking to locate such healthcare websites.
Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.
The aim of this website is to answer all the questions we have – yours and ours – about caring for our health, using the internet.
At it’s most basic, it’s about how we can have consultations with General Practitioners about General Practioner issues, and get any prescriptions that they may issue filled as conveniently as possible.
But the possibility exists for us to have consultations with the best Specialists in the world, even though they may be on the other side of the world.
What this website will offer is accounts of how we and our readers have got on in trying out certain things ourselves.
To us, the most exciting thing is that it offers the possibility of even the littlest things in the world, about our health, being properly addressed, when we’re not going get around to taking the time and trouble to organise face-to-face consultations. Normally, the costs are not that great.
Of course, at present, we, ourselves, have infinitely more questions than answers.
Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.
The experience of one of the people we know, has strengthened our view that more and more people will have one or more websites that they turn to for help and advice whenever they have medical problems – before, after, or as well as, seeking face-to-face consultations.
He chose Hub.Health for no particular reason, to start learning about this.
After HubHealth had asked him 12 or 15 questions, he was informed that a particular time had been allocated, at 9 pm in the evening, in four days time??? when a doctor would phone him. The “in four days time,” was a bit of a shock – but it WAS the day before Christmas that he rang, so, presumably, it wouldn’t have been typical. As it turned out, they rang him a few hours earlier than that.
One of the things that concerned him was that he was hard of hearing, and was anxious to know how this might affect a phone consultation. That was soon answered – a phone consultation was impossible, which was also quickly recognised by HubHealth – but they just carried on and emailed him a full response in writing.
One of the things that he says had concerned him was that he might not end up with anything in writing. He said that he’d previously emailed about 10 websites asking whether, if he used them for a consultation, he’d end up with anything in writing, and the answers had been indeterminate to say the least. But this was soon answered as to what would happen if he used HubHealth – he would get a full response in writing, regardless. (At least we know what happens if one is deaf – whether others would have to say they were deaf, whether they were deaf or not, is yet to be answered???)
He was provided with a prescription for a particular medication, which was to be forwarded to a particular pharmacy and we are waiting to see how this works out.
He was charged $35 for his advice and the prescription.
One of the things he says interests him – he says he had fairly recently spent 23 days in a government hospital, and during those 23 days he was not told once what was wrong with him, let alone provided with anything in writing. Perhaps, except in the case of a clear cut urgency, one should get as many opinions as they can BEFORE they go to hospital?
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, provide us with feed back. Our aim is to put together answers about every possible aspect of using the internet to get answers in relation to our health care, for ourselves and others. And most of these answers will, no doubt, come from our readers. And please feel free to email us with any questions you may have to which we may already have answers. You will never be charged a cent.
Email us at info@questionsmisc.info.