New app brings doctors to doorsteps in New York City
Uber's been making waves (and pissing off city governments) by letting you flag down fancy cars, so is it any surprise that one of its early engineers created another "we'll come to you" startup? It's called Pager, it just launched today in Manhattan, and it promises to bring doctors to your doorstep... for a price. First things first: after you install the Pager app, you're asked to set up a profile with a photo and store your credit card information. When that's done you'll be treated to a list of participating board-certified doctors that you can sift through based on your symptoms.
Once you've found someone whose equipped to tackle your particular ailment, a quick tap sets up a near-immediate phone consultation. That's the ideal experience, anyway. The startup is so young that there are only about 20 doctors onboard, and they simply won't appear in the map view if your domicile is too out there. As you'd probably expect though, the price tags are the real rub here. If that little bit of phone advice is all you need, you'll shell out $50 and call it a day. Actually getting a doctor to make a house call is just a hair pricier: think $300 ($250 of which goes in the MD's pocket). And just to keep the inevitable Uber comparisons going, the startup told the Wall Street Journal that it may give surge pricing a shot down the road too.
