RelayHealth's namesake platform is used by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts in a pilot program to pay for patients e-visits, which have proven to be less costly and time-consuming than physician office visits. Some doctors currently use e-mail to answer straightforward quest ions from patients and to renew their prescriptions, but patients and insurers generally do not pay for such exchanges. However, under new programs, health plans and insurance companies are starting to cover e-visits. In the Massachusetts pilot program, 200 physicians affiliated with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and their patients will participate. Blue Cross Blue Shield will pay doctors $19 for each Web visit, and patients pay a $5 co-pay. There is no phone tag, says a physician and spokesman planning to participate, and physicians try to answer e-mails within 24 hours. Dr. John Halamka, chief medical information officer for Beth Israel and CIO of CareGroup Health System, which is the operator of the medical center, predicts that Beth Israel physicians will take part in about 500 e-visits with about 250 patients in the first year. Documentation from e-visits will be stored in patients electronic medical records. Among steps described for using the RelayHealth platform are preregistration of patients, who log onto the RelayHealth secure site via a Web browser to answer questions about symptoms; automated system features; and automated billing of co-pay fees to patients credit cards with billing information sent to insurers.