Content Matters

RevolutionHealth, the health portal announced 18 months ago by Steve Case, has now launched in "preview" mode.

The site is using a freemium model, by which the content will initially be available free, with premium services to be added as they move to launch.  According to the Wall Street Journal, Case hopes that consumers will eventually pay around $100 per year for a subscription to the site.  The official launch date is planned for April.

So, who needs another health portal?  Well, considering that healthcare remains among the fastest growing market segments and that there are only a few players (such as WebMD) focused on the consumer segment, there's a lot of room for a new entrant. 

Steve Case being, well, Steve Case, has aspirations higher than simply generating revenues.  According to his blog, Case aims to make this a "Company that can change the world."  He shares that his interest in the segment was born out of his brother Dan's being diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2001, and the challenges Dan and his family dealt with in simply dealing with the bureaucracies of today's health care environment.  Before you dismiss such aspirations, they're not that different from those Case had in the early days of AOL, before anyone had heard of the Internet.

The site has five main areas: Healthy Living, Conditions & Treatments, Doctors & Hospitals, Insurance and a Toolkit containing more than one hundred tools from simple weight loss calculators to a group of 115 assessments.  There's an online health portfolio, which will allow users to store their health history and a health expense manager to track health care expense and insurance information.  RevolutionHealth also includes an offline component.  There's a telephone-based support option to help you locate a physician, answer health questions or navigate medical bills and paperwork.  Your personal health records may be accessed in multiple ways so you'll always have
access in emergency.  Users who sign up for the preview can have full access for free for the remainder of 2007.

The Health Care market is getting more and more complex (just look at the new Medicare drug programs as an example).  There's a clear need for better tools to track and manage health care information.  Assuming that they can give users comfort with privacy and security issues, RevolutionHealth could be well-positioned to fill that need.  Subscription models are risky in the consumer space, but if they can gain traction during the initial free period, I think they'll do well in conversion.

Meanwhile, WebMD is not sitting on their hands.  They also announced new services this week, including a "Personal Health Record" tool.  Increased competition in this space should be good for all consumers.