Dive Brief:
- A growing number of providers in the United States are now taking payment for services by Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a controversial peer-to-peer open-source digital currency network whose prices rise and fall rapidly.
- For example, Paul Abramson, M.D., founder of the My Doctor Medical Group, uses Bitcoin because unlike credit cards, Bitcoin transactions don't give a bank access to protected health information.
- There is even a virtual currency site called CoinMD designed to help doctors accept the coin for care.
Dive Insight:
There are many reasons positions are attracted to virtual currency at the market is far from mature at this point. If nothing else, it's an easy way to get paid without gathering the credit card processor take its piece of the action. Still, it should be years before virtual currencies like these have a stable position in medicine, as they are still maturing.