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Medicare announced that it will allow certain organizations to use its claim database. Very interesting. Organizations have been wanting to get at this data for decades, and the Wall Street Journal engaged in a lawsuit along a similar vein.

Medicare announced that it will allow certain organizations to use its claim database. Very interesting. Organizations have been wanting to get at this data for decades, and the Wall Street Journal engaged in a lawsuit along a similar vein.

If this data were publicly available, we'd be happy to integrate it to help people find doctors. A very simple usage would be to help patients identify medical providers who have treated other patients with the same medical condition.

I had heard rumors of this earlier, and it's neat to see this announcement. A couple of questions immediately come to mind? When will this data become available? What are the eligibility requirements to use this data?

We're still improving the interface to allow providers to add information to their profiles. More people than we expected have waded through our imperfect software, and I'd just like to highlight a few so you can see what claimed profiles can look like:

Tara Nelson

Lauren Dahl

Robin Furner

Roland Biron

Sanford Finkel

We're still improving the interface to allow providers to add information to their profiles. More people than we expected have waded through our imperfect software, and I'd just like to highlight a few so you can see what claimed profiles can look like:

Tara Nelson

Lauren Dahl

Robin Furner

Roland Biron

Sanford Finkel

These providers haven't reached out to us to have their profiles highlighted -- I just thought they were interesting, especially given the biographical information that they added. If you know of a provider that would like to get known in the community, we'd be delighted to have him or her claim the corresponding profile and add information. If you'd like a blog mention, please reach out to us.

In case you're curious, yes, we want to allow providers to upload pictures of themselves. If you have other suggestions on how to streamline the process, please let us know.

Happy Thanksgiving from DocSpot!

Happy Thanksgiving from DocSpot!

One of the challenges of our prior user interface was what to do with the map showing the search results. For a long while, we drew a red box around the area that was included in the search. In part, this was inspired by the search area usually being a square, and the map only being a rectangle. This had the advantage of clearly informing the user what was part of the search area and what wasn't. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear how to trigger a new search somewhere else on the map or how to zoom in. Our latest release addresses those issues.

One of the challenges of our prior user interface was what to do with the map showing the search results. For a long while, we drew a red box around the area that was included in the search. In part, this was inspired by the search area usually being a square, and the map only being a rectangle. This had the advantage of clearly informing the user what was part of the search area and what wasn't. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear how to trigger a new search somewhere else on the map or how to zoom in. Our latest release addresses those issues.

Rather than delineate the search area with a red box, we now use the entire map to indicate what area the search includes. If you move the map, zoom out, or zoom in, you'll trigger a new search. This turned out to be trickier than originally anticipated because we need to estimate the size of the map to know what area to search over. However, we think this is a more intuitive user interface. It might be a little annoying to trigger a new search every time someone moves the map. For example, Yelp addresses this problem with a checkbox that allows the user to specify whether to search again when the map moves. Both methods (automatically triggering a new search or not) have their disadvantages. If you have any ideas on this or any other part of the service, let us know.

We've mentioned it for a while -- especially to those who have written in to update information -- but now, the wait is finally over. Providers who have successfully claimed their profiles can now enrich them directly. They can add information to help prospective patients to get to know them -- things like contact information, treatment philosophy, personal website, and even whether they are accepting new patients or not.

We've mentioned it for a while -- especially to those who have written in to update information -- but now, the wait is finally over. Providers who have successfully claimed their profiles can now enrich them directly. They can add information to help prospective patients to get to know them -- things like contact information, treatment philosophy, personal website, and even whether they are accepting new patients or not.

There are a few caveats. First, there are certain categories of information that we don't yet accept -- data like licensure and pictures. Also, if a provider isn't listed in the National Provider Identifier database, we don't have a way for them to create a profile and start adding information (we'll be working on that soon).

If you have a profile, please try out the feature. Feel free to send us a message if you run into any problems. Thanks for engaging!