Business

Virtual Health Care Spares Doctor’s Visits—and Awkwardness

VCs are pouring money into telemedicine, and patients with all sorts of ailments are saving some of theirs.
Virtual Health Care Spares Doctors Visits—and Awkwardness
Martina Paukova

Good news for obsessive symptom Googlers: There’s a new form of quick, cheap health care—no trip to the doctor required. Climbing insurance deductibles are fueling a boom in telemedicine—medical care by phone, online messaging, or video chat—particularly for life’s more awkward (and pharmaceutically lucrative) ailments. Within the past 15 months, men’s wellness startups Roman, Hims, and Keeps have emerged to offer virtual care for maladies like erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, and hair loss.

After filling out an online questionnaire, users are connected with a licensed physician who consults via phone, messenger, or video and can prescribe medication remotely. The meds are delivered to your door, often at a steep discount. Keeps provides generic Rogaine for $10 a month, compared with up to $29 at drugstores, while Roman offers generic Viagra for $34 a dose, less than half the price at some pharmacies. (Since the startups don’t accept insurance, those costs are out-of-pocket.) These sites have already attracted thousands of visitors, along with millions in VC funding. Roman’s parent company secured $88 million in September, and Hims has raised nearly $100 million to date.

Now the model is expanding beyond its anxious-male target audience. In November, Hims introduced Hers, a spinoff delivering birth control, skin care products, and hair loss treatments. And with their latest $15.25 million funding round, the creators of Keeps are launching Cove, a sister brand for migraine sufferers, eliminating your throbbing head and the headache of an in-person doctor’s appointment in one swoop.

This article appears in the January issue. Subscribe now.

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