Online health sites battling for the consumer market

AOL co-founder Steve Case's new company announces its first offerings, while WebMD responds with new services of its own.

By Tyler Chin, AMNews staff. Feb. 12, 2007.

Revolution Health and WebMD Health on Jan. 22 announced new online health offerings, setting the stage for a titanic Internet battle.

Two years after he founded Revolution Health Group to "revolutionize" the health care system, AOL co-founder Steve Case has launched Revolution Health, a Web site offering online health information and more than 125 free tools and services to help consumers manage their health.

Among Revolution Health's services are a free online personal health record, symptom checker, and networking forums linking patients and caregivers. A preview version of the site, scheduled to launch formally in mid-April, includes content from the Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and Harvard University.

The site also is offering, for a little less than $100 a year, premium membership "concierge services" under which users can access telephone-based services. The service would allow users to ask questions of nurses, obtain assistance with health insurance problems, and find and schedule appointments with physicians.

The company is waiving the annual subscription fee through Dec. 31 for users who sign up by mid-April and agree to post ratings of physicians, hospitals and treatments.

Case has invested about $100 million of his own money in Revolution Health Group, which is part of Revolution LLC.The startup company is competing against what analysts call the 800-pound gorilla of the online health world, WebMD Health.

On Jan. 22, WebMD unveiled next-generation services similar to Revolution's. Those include a free online personal health record that consumers previously had to pay for and a symptom checker. Wayne Gatinella, CEO of WebMD Health, said its initiative has been in the works for the past 18 months and is unrelated to Revolution Health's launch.