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Companies pay Dialogue a set fee per employee covered, which gives the employee and their family access to Dialogue’s roster of nurses and doctors, including specialists in emergency medicine, dermatology, and pediatrics.

The idea isn’t to keep sick employees at their desks, but rather to cut down on time spent in clinics and emergency rooms waiting to see a doctor, says Cherif Habib, co-founder and chief executive of the mobile healthcare firm.

“When somebody needs to go to the doctor, they could easily miss half a day.… If you can save that half a day at the doctor’s, there’s a big ROI (return on investment for the company) there,” he says.

While some people might not be comfortable sharing sensitive health information over a mobile device, Habib says the communication between medical professionals and patients — including video chats and direct messaging — is secure and bound by the same confidentiality rules as a regular visit to a doctor.

Dialogue is part of a wave of startups in mobile healthcare segment, where a handful of companies have launched and received funding in the past year. Dialogue itself just raised $4 million in fresh seed money to fund the expansion outside Quebec.

The latest financing was led by Diagram, a fintech-focused venture capital fund that is backed by Power Financial Corp. The investor group also includes BDC Capital, Canada’s business development bank; Hacking Health Accelerator; and angel investors such as Mark Cohen, co-founder of laser eye surgery juggernaut Lasik MD.