Patent ID: 7756721

Claim:
A method of managing a health care request for a patient, the health care request having a first criteria that is a medical symptom of the patient, the health care request being made to an intermediary between a source of the health care request and the plurality of medical providers, the intermediary not being a person treating the patient and the intermediary having access to a processor that is coupled to a database system, and the method comprising the steps performed in the intermediary of: receiving the health care request from a source thereof in a patient interface provided by the processor; selecting a subset of medical providers having expertise in treating the medical symptom from a plurality of medical providers; augmenting, by a medically trained individual, the health care request with medical information that is associated with the medical symptom, is medically relevant to dealing with the medical symptom, and is located by the medically trained individual in the database system using an augmentation interface provided by the processor; providing the augmented health care request to the subset of medical providers using a provider interface provided by the processor; receiving one or more treatment proposals for treating the medical symptom from the subset of medical providers in response to the augmented health care request via the provider interface; and providing one or more of the treatment proposals to the source via the patient interface.