privacy rules written decades ago did not anticipate the rise of these new conduits to medical care, and the rules governing health data under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, don’t always apply. The potential for intimate medical details to become a commercial product exists with other online medical resources, too, from information provider sites such as WebMD to apps you might use for mental health care. They list only some of the available providers, the reviews and other information may be one-sided, and it’s hard to know just what many sites do with the data they collect about users. Yet medical and privacy experts say it’s wise to approach the sites with some caution. The ability to make a doctor’s appointment with a few clicks of a mouse draws millions of Americans to these services every month. But instead of looking for a Thai place in your neighborhood, you search for unused doctor appointment slots, filtering by medical specialty or procedure, location, and insurance plan. Zocdoc says it did not make money from the vaccine bookings but gained visibility and goodwill.īroadly, websites like Zocdoc Solv, operating in 42 states and Qwell, based in New York City, function much as OpenTable does for restaurants. Cities such as Chicago used the medical appointments company Zocdoc to help people find vaccination openings, and the company assisted with vaccination appointments in 21 U.S.
Several of these services became prominent players in the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
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