Say Goodbye to Dr. Google Paranoia With Sherpaa
LatestIt’s 3 A.M. and you’re frantically clicking Google results for “my neck is making a weird creaking sound am I dying + tumors” or “is pregnancy AT ALL possible after three months,” again. Now there’s Sherpaa, a startup that connects you with doctors instead of misspelled Yahoo! Answers remedies whenever you need to know what the fuck is going on inside your body. We spoke with Sherpaa’s Dr. Ida Santana about how the service empowers marginalized groups of people who often have trouble accessing health care — not just paranoid web-surfers.
Here’s how Sherpaa works: you email or call a doctor at any time, on any day to describe your symptoms — let’s say it burns when you pee, which is A LOT this weekend — and you’ll get a response in around 15 minutes. You answer her questions; turns out you have a UTI. She prescribes an antibiotic and anti-burning medication, calls in the prescription, and ten minutes later you have what you need. No doctor visit necessary, no co-pay, no more burning.
You can also ask Sherpaa’s doctors whether you were fucked over. Does your ER bill seem unfairly expensive? Email them an image of your bill; they’ll contact the ER and your insurance company to see whether there was a mistake.