[para_7k]

I have used online consultation through practo.com and icliniq for second opinions. My Primary opinion always comes from a doctor who I meet personally. I sometimes provide medical reports and get their opinions. One advantage of online consultation is that you can get to meet good doctors who are not necessarily from your home city.

As far as medicines are concerned, I use netmeds and 1mg.com to order alternate medicines (ayurveda/homeopathy). Prescription drugs always come from local medplus store or my trusted pharmacist.

[chandrda]

Consulting - I have never consulted online through an app or laptop, but have consulted via phone many a times for kids and my parents. But it was always with a known Doctor and where I could explain the symptoms easily.

Online Pharma - I use both online and local medical store. I buy medicines for nearly 200k a year for the entire family. Regular prescription drugs are through online and adhoc purchases through local chemists if the value is less.
The online store discount is too good to be ignored for me.

I believe the online and local stores will co-exist for some time and who will win depends on the Government policy. There should be some restriction on the kind of prescriptions which can be sold online just to prevent abuse.

Regards

[alpha1]

I believe that the online consultation, though today is being done by actual doctors at back-end, will soon move to Artificial intelligence platform as soon as these companies get enough data about use cases and course of action.

Online consultation will then become the first response to filter out cases that don't really require a real doctor's checkup (and his time and man-hours and money).

Yet another place where the general direction of movement is towards using lesser number of human beings in the system.

[motorguy]

I have a medical store whom I know the owner from the time he was about 8 years old. He is reliable and once can trust him 100% given that I have been buying medicines from his father since 1992.

Since I am diabetic, he generally matches the online price for stuff like testing strips (give or take Rs.20 or so) and ensures that he gives me medicines that have the longest possible expiry dates. I used to buy testing strips online and found that sometimes vendors give strips that have hardly 4-6 months to expiry. Since then I buy everything through him. I just have to make a call (or whatsapp the prescription to him) and he delivers to my home (which is about 15 mins from his store). I then do a bank transfer immediately to him for the amount.


Since as per our forum rules, I do not want to promote any seller in any way, if any of you want his number, if you are in Bangalore around the Ulsoor Road or MG Road area, please PM me.

[Miyata]

Have voted for "Have not consulted, but might consult in the future. Have ordered Medicines online."

Have ordered meds from 1mg and netmeds. They do arrive in a few days after the order goes in, but I've not yet been in a rush to have them early. That worked out fine.

About e-doctor-consulting, how exactly does it work? Is the doc on the other end on video/audio/chat interface? I don't yet have the confidence. I have a need to meet with the doctor personally and gauge for myself the attributes (mannerism, open to questions and discussions, etc) and competence before I can develop the trust and confidence.

Luckily though haven't had to make any doc visit over the last 15-yrs that I can recollect. Just the regular pediatric stuff for kids and occasionally accompanying parents for their checkups and followups. Will hold off the e-consulting till there is better confidence in the process.

[docsr]

Thank you for an interesting discussion. Being a physician, I would like to provide view from the other side on the “online consultation” debate. Let me forewarn you, this is a pretty long post.

On the topic of online pharmacies. The cost cuts do benefit the customer. The convenience of ordering stuff from the comfort of your home is genuine- the success of amazon, flipkart etc is testimony to that fact. However, current margins are unrealistic and sustaining them, in some ways, could be detrimental. Often, it is the smaller generic pharma companies that provide the largest margins, as against the larger more reputable ones. It would, hence, be logical to assume that online pharmacies would push these products as they get the best margins on these (that is even after providing a good rebate to the customer). However, often efficacy of drugs from these smaller companies are untested and if quality is poor- either active ingredient is in lower concentrations or there is less attention to quality control practices during manufacture, the patient taking the drug is not benefitted and at-times harmed. So, please insist on drugs from reputed well-known brands, even if you end up paying a bit more. Be VERY careful when going for generics from unheard of manufacturers- irrespective of whether you are buying online or in your neighborhood pharmacy.


Telemedicine, in various guises, has been around for over a decade and a half. However, the technology remains immature. I am sure that it holds great promise, though, what form and shape it will eventually evolve is unclear. Major developments in big data, AI etc. hold great promise – but any meaningful application is still a fair way away. Though, demonstrations of cross ocean robotic surgery have taken place- where is surgeon is sitting in one continent and controlling a robotic instrument operating on a patient in another continent- these are impractical, enormously expensive and fraught with risk. Even is there is one great surgeon in one city who is exceptionally good at a particular operation, there is no way he or she can provide that surgery to all that need it.

Current online consultation portals are basically first contact virtual meetings and, in most instances, will encourage you to visit a physician – often the portal itself referring you to one in your geographical location, and a charging the doctor a fee for the referral.. Virtual consultations with senior doctors, are like Rs.1 airline seats- more hype than substance, the portal using these to promote themselves.

Like any other person, doctors too value their personal time. It would be most unacceptable to most to be sitting by their phone all hours of day and night to reply to queries from unknown virtual clients, who they have never physically seen before and know next to nothing about. The physician giving advise virtually is liable in the real world too!

Therefore, you really are not going to get any reasonable advice. If you feel you or some close to you is sick, don’t seek reassurance in a virtual consult – go see a doctor – or visit a hospital emergency unit. Let me assure you, it will be far far more valuable to you.

The other issue I have is this. Access to specialists and doctors is easiest in India, at least in towns and cities. Most often consultations are available at short notice or as walk-ins. This is in sharp contrast to more “developed” medical systems such at that in the US, UK or Australia and Europe- where waiting periods to see a specialist can run into weeks and even months.So how is virtual consultation actually benefiting you? Issues in urban health provision is affordability and I do not think telemedicine is the answer.

The real problem lies in underserved rural areas. Telemedicine seems like a good option – at least theoretically. But, to expect these folk to be able to provide accurate data online and follow online instructions – in the absence of basic amenities and education is far fetched. A hybrid model with a general physician to screen and evaluate a rural patient locally and then communicate virtually with a specialist in a remote location is perhaps the way forward.

On a more philosophical note, medicine is a “human “ science. A lot of diagnostics and patient care involves nonverbal cues , non-data driven methods and soft skills. Telemedicine will never be able to replicate this. The recent fracas with EMR (electronic medical records) in the US is testament this.

[coolmind]

Originally Posted by sugam

So, would the discount component play an important role in the decision making process? Say for example, you had another service promising a 60 minute delivery, but no discounts, what would you do?

To me discount will be the priority.
Because if its an emergency, I will be preferring buying in person rather than waiting for the delivery of the medicines at home. So whenever Iam buying online, it means that there is no emergency hence the discount will be the priority.

[vivekrvcse]

Online pharmacies are built for repeat orders.. As their CAC itself is a couple of hundred rupees.

I know Sastasundar in Kolkata and Delhi/NCR are doing a good job of omni channel pharma retail - you order from the comfort of your home / phone, and there is a Sastasundar store that delivers to your home the next day. I have seen tamper proof packaging and barcode + batch number details.

If anyone has used them, please share experiences

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by sugam

Greetings BHPian...

Would love to hear your experiences and thoughts on this!

Didn't realize this thread existed, very useful and timely.

Originally Posted by kavensri

Netmeds - Minimum time taken by them to deliver the medicines is 3 days. Many a times, it used to be around a week. They do have attractive offers like 'NMS Super cashback'...

I've been posting on the online shopping thread about Netmeds. Glad I found this thread, shows one should do their due diligence before posting.
Just canceled my order on Netmeds - second time I'm doing this after an initial period of good (but slow) service. Previously, they delayed the shipment for almost a week so I canceled, realizing that even their customer care options had been modified to disallow escalation.
Yesterday placed an order with prescription, but surprisingly doctors called me 3 times to "verify" and yet the status was stuck at "Doctor consultation", this morning I decided Netmeds had serious internal issues after the takeover by Reliance and decided not to be their victim again.

On e-consultations, I think we are nowhere near the level of technology required to diagnose a human from afar and it will remain that way for quite a while.

[V.Narayan]

e-Consultation with a Doctor I don't know is out for me. Though I have on occasion done a tele consult with my family Doctor for the usual cough cold sort of thing or some skin rash but she knows my spare parts inside out and we can talk comfortably. With an unknown doctor for a first time malady I would be hesitant.

At my work place we do a lot of tele consultation via video with our patients and their parents. This is always with a child we have operated on and are checking on progress. Recently I saw a video demo of robotic surgeon being used for a simple but live surgery. Remote control is coming.

[Worldchamp 2019]

I've had terrible experiences with Netmeds.com. Their customer service and delivery partners are pathetic. After 10 days of placing the order nothing has arrived. Tracking shows it is sitting in E-com express hub for the last 1 week. Went to the local e-com express hub. I was shocked to see around 1,000 packages just lying there. When I asked about mine they said it has still not arrived here and is still at the airport.
Contacted Netmeds on chat and all you get are copy paste messages being sorry for the inconvenience. How is this company allowed to sell medicines if they can't deliver on time. Absolutely pathetic! They don not reply to emails and the phone number is just automated.