In the hustle of life, we want to embrace things that bring comfort in our lives. In this process of easing out the lives, people these days adopt time-saving technology over time-consuming procedures. From feeding your hungry stomach to taking care of your health, mobile apps have gained much popularity. In this era of mobile applications, online doctor appointment booking apps help people to skip long waiting queues.
Moreover, they are able to get medical consultation in just a single click. You can connect with doctors or nurses from your comfort zones. You can connect with them via text messages or video chat to get the required prescription. So if you are willing to develop a doctor appointment booking app like ZocDoc, you required to hire an On-demand App Development company, below-given factors and analysis will help you get started right.
Identify the Need for Doctor Appointment Booking App Development
Patients required medical attention and treatment immediately. But, long unwanted queues and rush at doctors’ clinics may sometimes create worse health conditions. Now, to overcome this traditional procedure of rushing at doctors’ clinics, the idea of doctor appointment booking app development came into existence.
Such apps quickly provide medical consultations, help you to find specialized doctors nearby, and let you book a lab test. You can even connect to doctors online and order medicines. These apps provide convenience to working professionals as well as who find difficulty visiting a doctor in between their hectic schedule. Also, it becomes easier for doctors to treat more patients.
Business Scope for an On-Demand Doctor Application Development
As per a conducted survey, people prefer online appointment booking more than visiting the clinic or booking via call. Thus, with increasing demand for such apps, the need to build an app for booking doctor appointments has also increased. The health market is supposed to boost monetization models by the mobile health market.
According to the studies and the graphs obtained, mobile healthcare applications will become one of the major revenue contributors in the digital health sector. In the market, we can see many healthcare applications available. However, a few of them are most preferred such as ZocDoc, Practo, BookMyDoc, HealthTap, and Doctor on Demand.
Few Popular Apps
ZocDoc
Founded in 2007, ZocDoc is one of the leading doctor appointment booking apps in the United States. At present, it has more than six million users, as it provides an easy and user-friendly app for both- doctors and patients. With the app, you can book an appointment online. It has an integrated map that helps users to find nearby doctors. Moreover, you can even read reviews doctors received for their services.
Doctor on Demand
Another medical app on our list is Doctor on Demand. This is also popular in the US as it has a special real-time consultation feature. It has over 1500 doctors linked in it. Doctors are available for patients all the time 24/7/365. The online payment option is also available in this app.
Health Tap
Founded in 2010, it is a premium healthcare app with more than 11,000 specialists are associated with it. Apart from the video call facility, it offers in-app text messages and phone call facilities.
Practo
Another renowned app in Asia with online medicine ordering and delivery facility is Practo, it has more than 2, 00, 000 healthcare providers to help the patients. In this app, an additional storage facility is offered to keep a check on medical records. Also, it has a health-related blog directory.
Monetization Model
The on-demand doctor appointment app makes money in various ways:
Subscription
Users can avail of the premium features of the app by subscribe it. This subscription may charge a reasonable amount from the users. For example, HealthTap charges $99 per month and gives unlimited access to consult doctors via text messages or live video chat.
Sponsors
Doctors may act as sponsors for such apps. They pay a certain amount at fixed intervals to maintain the visibility of their profiles to the app users.
Video Consultation fees
Few apps charge fees for live video consultation like Doctor on Demand. This app charges $40 for a 15-minute long video appointment with a doctor.
Payment from Doctors
Few apps like ZocDoc charges from doctors and not from the users. In such apps, a doctor pays a fixed amount annually to stay connected with their patients.
Core Features of Doctor Appointment Application
Online Consultations
Online doctor appointment booking
Online Prescriptions
Search and filters
Nearby Doctors on the map
Profiles of healthcare providers
Push notifications
Payment gateway
Points to remember while Developing a Healthcare App
Target Audience
While developing a doctor appointment app like ZocDoc, the target audience should be kept in mind. App features should be altered according to the target audience.
Build an impressive app for booking doctor appointments
Develop an app with a simple and user-friendly interface by using simple yet attractive layout and navigation.
Data Privacy
For any type of mobile app development, developers need to adopt proper security to ensure data safety and privacy.
Cost to Develop an App like ZocDoc
It is not possible to estimate the exact cost of developing a doctor appointment booking app. The total cost completely depends upon the features and functionalities you want to incorporate in your app. Moreover, different app platforms cost the different charges.
Moreover, when it comes to the calculation of the actual cost of mobile app development, it depends on the following factors:
Platform Used - iOS, Android, Windows
UI / UX design - simple, intermediate, rich and complex
Complexity - numbers of features and functions embedded in the app
Third-Party SDKs - payments and payouts
In order to build an app like ZocDoc with core features, you would need to build a mobile application and a web-based admin panel. Moreover, this will include all the features of a great doctor appointment booking application. Third-party solutions that may be used for finding doctors and booking appointments are-
MapKit for an easy map incorporation
MCore Location for real-time location tracking
MTwilio for text messaging
MPayPal Payments for online payments
MLogentries for log management
MNew Relic to monitor digital performance
Generally, developing a healthcare app like ZocDoc takes around six to eight months. Like its cost, the time taken to build an app depends on the scale, complex features to be embedded in the app, and the hourly rate charged from the development team.
Moreover, on average, to build a simple app with essential features will cost $30,000 approximately. Further, if you want t to add advanced features, then the cost may vary from $60,000 to $70,000.
Benefits for Patients
Selection of Right Doctor
Through such apps, you can easily choose the right doctor for yourself. You can get details about a doctor or clinic from their profile, which includes basic information and reviews by verified patients. The profile also displays their academic qualifications, their experience, appointment fees, and other relevant information.
Online Appointment Booking
This is a perfect way to escape from the long waiting queues outside the doctors’ clinics and medical stores. You can make online bookings with the app. Besides this, you can even select the time and date of the doctor's appointment as per your convenience.
Booking a Lab Test
If in case, the doctor asks you for some lab tests, you can book lab tests online too. What you need to do is just to book a lab technician. He will visit your house and collect the blood samples. You don’t need to go to the laboratory unless machines are used for tests.
Delivery of Medicines
Another benefit of medical appointment booking apps is that you can even buy medicines online. All you have to do is searching for prescribed medicines by its name and place an order for the same. Some apps allow you to upload a prescription of medicine and deliver the right medicines at your doorstep.
Online Doctor Consultation
With this feature, you can consult a doctor for health-related queries. You just need to share the symptoms and other required details. The selected doctor will diagnose your problem and prescribe you its treatment. Moreover, you can even connect to them via live chat. This feature may or may not be free in different apps.
Benefits for Doctors
Online Consultation
Doctors can increase their earnings by providing health-related services to their patients online. Also, doctors can simply sign up with the app to solve patients’ queries and get a consultation amount for each answer.
Online Profile
The online profile of doctors helps to attract more patients towards them. Also, their profiles attract users who look for highly specialized expert doctors online. Users basically go through their experience, academic qualification, and feedback of previous patients. Also, this provides a mutual feeling of satisfaction.
Final Words
In the end, from the benefits mentioned above, it is crystal clear that online doctor appointment apps are a time-saver. They are superior compared to the old traditional methods. Moreover, these apps help users to get instant medical help for their health problems with other remarkable features.
Sanjay Kidecha
CMO
by Manav Patel
by Sagar Bagasariya
by Mihir Mistry
by Drashti Pandya
