CIGNA Offers Virtual Doctor Visits

CIGNA HealthCare has teamed up with RelayHealth to offer customers Physician webVisits, a Web-based solution that allows customers to schedule doctors appointments, view laboratory results, and receive prescription refills and renewals online.

To facilitate ease of use and extend convenience to CIGNA HealthCare plan members (Bloomfield, Conn.; total assets $44.8 billion), the carrier has teamed up with RelayHealth (Emeryville, Calif.) to offer customers Physician webVisits, a Web-based solution that allows customers to schedule doctors appointments, view laboratory results, and receive prescription refills and renewals online.

Physician webVisits is built on RelayHealth's Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) .NET platform, running on Windows servers. The solution is a Microsoft ASP.Net customer-facing Web application on a Microsoft Internet Information Server that allows customers to research information on doctors, prescription and treatment costs, and 145 non-urgent medical symptoms. The application also allows health plan members to report any symptoms to their doctor by e-mail.

"This extends our relationship with the doctor and patient," explains Joseph Mondy, communications director for CIGNA. "A patient will be able to log on and enter in any symptoms they are experiencing, and the doctor will respond within eight hours."

CIGNA and RelayHealth teamed up in January 2006 and CIGNA is currently in the process of implementation. Because CIGNA HealthCare will be referring patients to RelayHealth's Web site, the IT teams have had to extend the security features, utilizing Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 and BizTalk Accelerators for compliance with HIPAA and HL7.

"CIGNA's auditors gave us great insight into the requirements that are demanded by a leading healthcare company," says Briana Pompei communications director at RelayHealth. "They kicked our tires, we came out successful, and we learned a lot from the process."

CIGNA and RelayHealth are expected to deploy the application in mid-July, piloting it on California-based CIGNA HealthCare members employed by Cisco Systems (San Jose, Calif.). These members will then have access to the system through a single sign-on to myCigna.com. CIGNA HealthCare will expand availability of Physician webVisits to other health plans in California, Arizona, Florida and the Tri-State/New York metropolitan area in 2007.