RE:General practitioners Dunwokin2,
So let me take a crack at this because you have hit on a few key points.In Canada what is insured is a GP consultation. You see your GP and they charge an A007 code for your assessment. The GP receives $36.85 or an A003 code for a full body exam and receive $84.85. This is an insured service. If they decide you need to see a Dermatologist they refer you and that is where it will take between 12-24 months. Once the Derm sees you the fee varies depending on the assessment. It is also an insured service.
So where does MedX fit in the Canadian system?
It is an uninsured service. So it works like this, you visit your GP and they think that you need to see a dermatologist. You do not want to wait a year so you ask to be sent to a MedX scanning location. When you arrive the technician takes a full scan and you pay a small fee $50-75. Your images are taken with a class 2 medical device that provide a perfect image of your suspicious mole or lesion along with your patient information. In 72 hours your images are read only by a dermatologist. It is the exact same as an in-clinic dermatologist visit.The dermatologist contacts you with your results.
The big differentiator is any consult with a pigmented lesion by video cannot provide the quality of image needed for proper assessment. The derms hate it so a lot of the time you are only seeing a GP not a derm. So you are back at square one waiting for a derm.
So that is the difference, and why a lot of these sites only talk about skin issues like acne, eczema, rashes,etc. not pigmented lesions. They are the ones that can kill you.
The next great point you made was indicating all the GP's in Canada. Once MedX gets enough of these devices in the market they will be able to use the leverage of the GP network. GP's will be targeted to drive traffic to the pharmacies and clinics that have a MedX scanning device. It is a complete patient circle of care model.
I suspect once a few of the larger distribution companies like Al Zwahari medical and their equivalent in Canada and the USA. You will see a large pick up in the number of scanning centres. It does not take a lot of devices doing 10-20 scans a day to create a large recurring revenue number.
So lets see what Q1 brings. MedX stated they were going to show the site locations on their website map. If we see 100's of sites opening up and you calculate each site doing between 10-20 scans a day @ $15.00 a scan the revenue adds up rather quickly. I would be curious what your experience is with GetSkinHelp?
Great discussion.