Contacting a doc via a video conference may soon be possible

Oct 13, 2014 10:11 GMT  ·  By

Everyone knows that if you look online for whatever symptoms are bothering you, you may end up finding out you have a cold or that you’re terminally ill. It’s a gamble everyone takes when Googling for some health issue that’s bothering them and it’s a definitive danger for hypochondriacs.

Well, when you’re now searching for whatever pain you have on Google, you’ll be able to see one very important note. “Consult a doctor if you have a medical concern,” reads the note that appears on the site, most often than not in the Knowledge Graph on the right side of the web version of the search results page.

The advice appears at the top of it all, right under the name of the graph, to make sure everyone can see it.

The new feature was flagged by a Reddit user who looked for “knee pain” on his Android smartphone. Under the medical inquiry there was a text saying “Talk with a doctor now.” Clicking on the information button, Google gives even more encouragement to seek a professional. “Based on your search query, we think you are trying to understand a medical condition. Here you can find health care providers who you can visit with over video chat. All visit costs are covered by Google during this limited trial.”

Video chat with a doctor

And here lies the newness of it all. On the redditor’s phone, the advice to chat with a doctor comes with a video icon. It seems that the company is currently testing out a new feature that connects users to doctors so they can get quick help without paying a lot of money for a visit unless it’s something serious.

“When you're searching for basic health information — from conditions like insomnia or food poisoning — our goal is provide you with the most helpful information available. We're trying this new feature to see if it's useful to people,” Google told Gizmodo.

It seems that the new feature may be connected to the Helpouts marketplace Google set in place about a year ago. The service allows people to teach Yoga, help out kids with English, offer cooking classes and more, straight from the comfort of their homes. Those who desire to take a lesson simply have to pay the fee for the individual set and wait for the scheduled time.

While the new health care feature may not operate exactly like that, since the whole thing is free (or more specifically, financially covered by Google), it’s still similar since it involves video chatting with doctors.

The availability of this video chat feature, however, seems to be geographically limited, but it could end up expanding in the coming months.

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