What is Teladoc?

Last week, in my story about next year's no-tax-hike budget in NorCo, I was a bit surprised when a county worker said he orshe had no knowledge of TelaDoc. "[I] don't know what it is and would like to know how many employees are actually using it and find it valuable. Would you be able to find that out for us Bernie?"

Teladoc is a mobile app you can download on your smart phone to put you into near immediate contact, by video or voice call, with one of over 3,100 licensed health care professionals. It began in Northampton County in June with an email blast to all county employees. At that time, 483 employees registered. As of September, there are 624 employees registered.

Though the county pays for this service, it costs the employee nothing. He or she is also spared the inconvenience of a trip to a doctor's office as well as a co-pay.

The average wait time is seven minutes.

The top diagnosis is acute frontal sinusitis. The top prescription is amoxicillin.

Among those who have used Teladoc in NorCo, 69% are women,and calls are most frequent between midnight and 8 am. That makes sense. Children often wake up in the middle of the night when they get sick. Mothers likely use the service to call in their children's symptoms.
The service is used most often on Mondays, and mostly by employees between 31-45 years old.

What Executive Lamont McClure likes most about Teladoc is how much money it saves, both for the county and employee. Between June and September, it has saved $97,196, or $517 per phone visit.

Those 624 registrations amount to 3,500 lives covered by this app.