Health insurance companies lose billions each year due to people heading to the emergency room over the slightest cough or runny nose. Anything that could save even a few trips to the doctor could be very valuable to the right company.
The idea behind Coughr.com is simple. Cough into a microphone and the site tells you whether you’ve likely got a bad case of bronchitis or just need to hock a quick lugie. While the front end looks simple enough, it would use advanced signal processing in the backend to look for tell-tale signs of various diseases. It would also have a few simple questions to help reduce the chance of a false diagnosis.
Don’t have a mic? No problem! Just dial 1-800-COUGHRR, wait for the prompt, and cough away. You might get a series of yes/no questions to answer, and then you’d receive your preliminary diagnosis.
OK. I’ve had some bad ideas in the past, but this one really blows! Is it a fake? Or is does it just plain suck? Guess correctly and you could win $50 worth of free advertising on Steve Poland’s Ringside Startup site.
7 responses so far ↓
Blake Lewis // March 29, 2007 at 4:44 am |
In Asia, Health insurance companies makes billions they filed bankruptcy before somebody ask for a pay back
Timothy Chen // March 30, 2007 at 8:16 am |
haha, Interesting! But I choose this one as a fake!
This service is useful, but still far away from implementing!
Just 1 vote in for $50 contest - ends at midnight tonight! « A Startup A Day // March 31, 2007 at 3:58 pm |
[...] Coughr.com - Health care app to diagnose symptoms via internet/phone [...]
Noah Coffey // March 31, 2007 at 7:11 pm |
This one has to be fake. I don’t even need to read the rest. Interesting idea, though.
Derek // March 31, 2007 at 8:01 pm |
FAKE. I’m pretty sure that even if this wasn’t fake, it would fail miserably.
ejourney // April 1, 2007 at 7:05 am |
fake.
Guess it wasn’t such a bad idea after all… « A Startup A Day // July 13, 2007 at 1:24 pm |
[...] had people vote on which one was a “fake” idea. The idea turned out to be “coughr.com” a site where you could cough into a microphone, enter a few symptoms, and presto – online [...]