Episode 75: How Symptom Checkers Improve PCP Quality and Efficiency, with Dr. Richard Munassi of Doc Response
January 21, 201634:22

Episode 75: How Symptom Checkers Improve PCP Quality and Efficiency, with Dr. Richard Munassi of Doc Response

Dr. Richard Munassi is the Chief Operating Officer of DocResponse, and is an accomplished healthcare executive with leadership expertise in for-profit and non-profit organizations, business development, and start-up acceleration. He holds both an MD and an MBA degree, and has an extensive background working with people from a multitude of cultures in project and program management, business development, operations, executive leadership, growth consulting, and investor strategies.

As an emerging leader in the healthcare technology field, Dr. Munassi has worked with journalism, biotechnology, medical education, and medical diagnostics startups. With a strong background in both clinical science as well as business, he brings a unique skillset to the table which allows organizations to hone in on clinical excellence while creating sound strategies for financial growth and business development.

In his limited downtime Dr. Munassi enjoys freelance writing for various publications and websites, volunteering with Habitat for Humanity, and consulting with one of his previous employers, the non-profit organization ROWAN: The Rural Orphan and Widows AIDS Network, whose mission is to empower individuals and communities impacted by AIDS in rural third world settings by providing healthcare, education, micro-enterprise solutions to indigent populations in rural third world settings.
Dr. Munassi has spent a considerable amount of time both living in and volunteering abroad. Countries that he has lived in include India, Malaysia, the Cayman Islands, and more.


00:00 DocResponse is the most accurate symptom checker available.
02:00 How DocResponse got its title as the most accurate symptom checker.
03:45 What a symptom checker is.
04:50 The use of a symptom checker as a way for a patient to increase their engagement and decide their next step, not diagnose themselves.
06:00 The problem that DocResponse aims to solve.
10:00 100,000,000 people are using symptom checkers each year.
10:30 The problem with this significant amount of patient engagment.
12:00 Why telling people to go see their doctors instead isn’t always the better solution.
13:20 Who is paying for DocResponse.
14:45 The shift in value-based healthcare and patient outcomes.
16:00 The problem of misdiagnosis.
16:50 How PCPs can find DocResponse useful as well.
19:30 Variation and consistency in healthcare, and how DocResponse is working to improve these.
21:00 How DocResponse can be incorporated into patient portals.
25:00 The permanence of symptom checkers and the best way to go forward as a PCP.
28:30 How working to make patient care more efficient starts by weeding out patients who don’t necessarily need to be seen.
30:30 Dr. Richard’s advice on making more time to improve PCP practices.
34:00 You can find out more at DocResponse.com, at Facebook.com/DocResponse, and on Twitter @DocResponse.

healthcare,health,pharma,marketing,doc response,
|
|

Episode Support Provided By

Special Thanks to Our 2026 Sustaining Monthly Donors

Marilyn Bartlett, Kimberly Carleson, Dylan Yahn, Benjamin Light, Matt McQuideAnn Kempski, Spencer Allen, Scott Tromanhauser, 
Steven Elkins, Matthew Bunte, and Lori Smith.

Recent Episodes

EP519: The Current State of Primary Care—Inevitable or Fixable? With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD
Relentless Health ValueJuly 08, 2026
519
40:0036.61 MB

EP519: The Current State of Primary Care—Inevitable or Fixable? With Lisa Rosenbaum, MD

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Today, let's start here. Right now, we are watching a very visible exodus of brilliant, consummate primary care (and other, honestly) physicians leaving traditional practice for concierge medicine or otherwise. For a full transcrip...

EP518: How Do You Explain the Difference Between an ASO Vendor and a TPA? With Claire Brockbank
Relentless Health ValueJuly 01, 2026
518
14:2513.2 MB

EP518: How Do You Explain the Difference Between an ASO Vendor and a TPA? With Claire Brockbank

Listen on Your Favorite App Dr. Alex Sommers: Hi. I'm Alex Sommers. I'm president of Astia Health, an advanced direct primary care organization, an emergency medicine and lifestyle medicine physician, as well as a licensed employer health plan advisor from Wisconsin. I'm curious how you explain the ...

EP517: The Business of Prior Auths: The 401-Level Financial Motive Behind Prior Auths
Relentless Health ValueJune 24, 2026
517
27:2325.07 MB

EP517: The Business of Prior Auths: The 401-Level Financial Motive Behind Prior Auths

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, Relentless Health Value Tribe. Welcome to it. So, yeah … last week, I had a great conversation with Ophelia Johnson ( EP516 ) that is a companion show, I would say, to this one. So, listen to that one first. Listen to this one first. You do you. For a full transcri...

EP516: GLP-1s and Cash Pay From the Pharma Manufacturer Point of View, With Ophelia Johnson
Relentless Health ValueJune 17, 202644:0540.35 MB

EP516: GLP-1s and Cash Pay From the Pharma Manufacturer Point of View, With Ophelia Johnson

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Welcome to it. Today we have a show that will bend your mind in new directions. And yes, I have a head cold at a very weird time of year. I have trouble apparently doing things like normal people. Anyway, we talk a lot on this podc...

EP515: SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) Fraud—Or Is It Fraud? With Michelle Cera, PhD
Relentless Health ValueJune 10, 202643:0739.47 MB

EP515: SNF (Skilled Nursing Facility) Fraud—Or Is It Fraud? With Michelle Cera, PhD

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. Lately, I have been just obsessed with what's hiding in plain sight: the root cause glitches in how American healthcare is built. Not the symptoms now. Not the noise. The actual ground zero. I mean, what we call healthcare in this ...

EP514: Successfully Suing a Health System for Their Anticompetitive Contracts and Also Collecting Damages for Plan Sponsors and Members, With Matt Cantor
Relentless Health ValueJune 03, 2026
514
43:4340.02 MB

EP514: Successfully Suing a Health System for Their Anticompetitive Contracts and Also Collecting Damages for Plan Sponsors and Members, With Matt Cantor

Listen on Your Favorite App Hello, all you Relentless Tribe members. This is the third episode in our legal goings-on trifecta, starting with Doug Aldeen in episode 512 covering what amounts to the main reasons plan sponsors wind up suing their brokers or employee benefit consultants. For a full tra...

EP513: Revisiting Cunning Anticompetitive Hospital Contracts, With Brennan Bilberry

EP513: Revisiting Cunning Anticompetitive Hospital Contracts, With Brennan Bilberry

Listen on Your Favorite App If you are a large employer, union funds broker, fiduciary, or anyone responsible for a health plan that spends half of its dollars on hospital care (which most do), or if you have anything to do with policy or enforcement of policy, yeah … listen this week and next week....

Listen and Follow

Sponsored by Aventria Health Group
©2026 BD Bridges LLC. All Rights Reserved.