eDocAmerica*

In the early 1990s, Dr. Charles Smith hatched the idea of providing medial advice through e-mail.

By the mid-1990s, he was trying it in his own practice, and it seemed to work. In 1997, Smith got serious. He formed Md Online LLC of Little Rock, which does business as eDocAmerica.

When eDocAmerica entered the market, the idea of giving medical advice and routine diagnosis by e-mail was brand new. Predictably, business started out slow.

The company was born in BioVentures, the business accelerator at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock designed to help technology-based startup companies.

But eDoc quickly graduated out of the program and began selling its services as an employee benefit. eDoc President Robbie Linn said it was difficult to get some of the first companies to sign up for the service because nobody knew how it would work.

In 2001, the company reported revenue of $250,000 – and a net loss. Now it has revenue of more than $2 million a year and is profitable, Linn said. The company had more than 140,000 patients in 2003 and now has more than 1 million.

Smith isn’t surprised by the success.

“I think that eDocAmerica has been successful because we were fortunate to assemble the right team at the right time, when patients were quite interested in being able to use technology to get more health information and improve their health care,” Smith said.

He also said eDoc should continue to grow as companies look for ways to save on health care costs. Smith visions that eDoc will become a standard procedure in the health care industry.

“I’m humbled that we have been able to accomplish this and hope to continue,” Smith said. “If we hadn’t done it, I was sure that somebody else would.”

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