People often need to visit the doctor. The preferred way to contact the doctor is to visit them after taking an appointment. But due to the increasing number of patients, the busy schedule of doctors, and some other reasons, you need some other way of communication. Keeping in mind, that making hour travel is not the right option for just a 5-minute visit. Moreover, health issues cannot be procrastinated, these need to be solved.
Hence, smartphones are the simplest way of visiting doctors. It solves the issue of delaying the treatments due to any reason. The option of reaching doctors online not only saves time but also saves money and the environment by reducing additional commutation.
The on-demand culture is now available with doctor prescriptions. When the pandemic broke over the world, many of the doctors started giving teleconsultation. This teleconsultation gave scope for the on-demand doctor app. Users can make appointments over the phone using the Smartphone and a few taps over the screen. Users no need to wait in the queue and the best is for senior citizens. Around the whole year, in the areas where population density is high, OPD often stays crowded.
The overcrowded OPDs are neither comfortable to wait for nor good for contamination in developing countries. The best way of relieving the crowd from OPDs is to bi-furcate the coming patients into two categories, where one is who must visit OPD, second are patients who can communicate through pone but the things are not resolved here.
Telephonic consultation has been there for many years. Social distancing and the increased work of health workers have given it an extra boost. The market for such app is growing continuously. This year the market is going to reach USD 40 billion. Today, online consultation is the perfect mean of delivering services without contamination.
In all, online consultation relieves the stress on the health workers. They can take a sigh of breath; along with a sense of responsibility. Integrated clinic schedule maintenance tool also relieved them from maintaining appointments daily.
Let’s have a detailed look at doctor on-demand app development along with a discussion of its cost and features.
Table of Contents
What is Doctor On Demand App?
On demand doctor app is an innovative app, which allows doctors and patients to communicate remotely. The app comes loaded with a number of important features, which make the online consultation smoother. The great way of providing the services to the end customers is now more prevalent in the medical industry in both altruistic and financial beneficiary ways.
Importance of On-Demand App in Healthcare
At this point, most of the population is concerned with some sort of healthcare issue. Medical practitioners need to make decisions for keeping the masses healthy and saving lives. A strong IT infrastructure is super essential for keeping other services up. So is the case with medical industry. On demand industry makes the decision-making process easier and quicker.
Smartphone has facilitated the check on patient health progressively with the app, where patients can monitor the condition. The information provided by the apps can be used for taking important steps in favor of people’s health.
Beneficial for both Doctor and Patients
A doctor needs to take proper knowledge of its patient. Alongside, the important assessments, X-rays, Test reports, and MRI reports on the on demand app, helps to deal with the emergency treatments. For simple cases, doctors can also provide consultation, offer prescriptions on the app within a few minutes using doctor appointment booking app development. This enables healthcare practitioners to give better care to their patients.
Cooperative Relations
Doctor on demand app development solutions has eliminated the need for a doctor to be at the place of a patient. Today, this constraint is just limited to critical care. All appointments, test results, and subsequent follow-ups are done through an app. On-demand app development is a boon for people living in far areas. The on demand doctor app is built to take care of everything from reminding the medicine schedule, monitoring the treatment issues and communicating with the patients.
Market Stats for Doctor On Demand Apps
During the ongoing pandemic, the telemedicine market has developed significantly. In the year 2019, the entire telemedicine market was valued nearly at $50 billion. But it was predicted that the global telemedicine market will grow from $79.7 in 2020 to $396.76 in 2027 at 25.8% CAGR. Seeing the rapid growth, it was also forecasted to reach around $460 billion by 2030. Not one, but various factors have backed the market which includes enhanced standard health care costs, telemedicine funds, and increment in digital health users.
According to a survey held in the USA, here are some of the facts about telehealth in the time of pandemic-
- 73% of the respondents went for telehealth service if they felt any Covid symptom.
- 12% of them were already using telehealth services without having symptoms.
The below chart comprises the growth of the telemedicine market with each passing year. In the future, it is predicted to have rapid growth globally.
Let’s Understand the Benefits of the On Demand Doctor App
According to the surveys, the on demand doctor app development has been a great success for the industry. The telemedicine industry opens up a lot of features for patients and doctors. Let’s take a look at the few most prominent benefits, which have forced firms to hire app developers:
1. Proper Attention
When a doctor visits the patients in crowded clinics and rushed hours, often he is not able to pay proper attention to the patients. Due to less attention, often patients ignore their health issues. On demand doctor app alleviate this issue of ignored health care and give better results. Patients experience better health recovery and proper follow-up.
2. Reduced Paperwork
Telemedicine app development offers the paperless practice of helping patients. It is one of the major benefits of the app, where both patient and doctor find relief from the hassling. On demand app makes it easy too in administration and management.
3. Convenience
First most, the doctor appointment app development was utilized and promoted by urban population. Now it has expanded to rural areas, where the people can meet their health needs, visit doctors, and ordering medicine, and keep communication with the doctor. People living in rural areas need these apps the most because they are less capable of reaching to doctors and better health services. For reaching the service, a rural person needs to travel a long distance, which sometimes raises emergency.
4. Reasonable Service
Healthcare services are a costly affair. Doctor on-demand app development has brought the cost of healthcare services down and affordable. The whole process have become way easier.
5. Less Crowds in Hospital
Doctor appointment app development solutions are made to let people communicate with the doctors from the comfort of their homes. Telemedicine provides assistance to the patients, which decreases the chance of disturbing health and emergency requirements. It has reduced the number of patients in the hospital, without compromising the service quality offered to clients.
6. Higher Return of Investment
The high favorability of these on demand app development solutions is increasing due to their high ROI. The apps are equally helpful for doctors, where doctors can cut down the cost of infrastructure and assist in maintaining a high return on investment.
7. Competitive Market
No market is without competition. So is the health industry. Not every medical organization offers the same level of service as others. Doctor appointment app development allows reaching the huge level of the market with a gain in the competition.
How does the App Work?
Doctor on-demand app development makes online and offline medical services available with the optimum level of convenience. Offline mode is available where tests and consultation can be done at home whereas online consultation is available for the patients:
Here is how the app works:
- Doctors register and build their profiles. They share their years of experience and the price of online consultation along with their specialization over particular things.
- The profile is verified, by the team of experts. This verification is necessary for avoiding fake profiles. The qualifications and specialization are checked.
- Patients can register their profile using their email id and maintain their medical history.
- Patients search for the online doctor profile for specific health problems. He can make calls, send messages, or book online appointments. The personal assistance option is also there where patients may call the doctor at home.
- On video consultation, the doctor communicates with the patient and asks about the health issues. After proper discussion, the doctor can tell for the lab test or other related stuff.
When the online or telephonic consultation is done, the digital prescription is shared via on demand app. Patients transfer the payment through the in-built secured payment gateways. Patients can either order medicine directly or order from the market.
Read Also: Fitness App Development: Cost & Features
Things to Consider for Developing Doctor Appointment App Development
For any app, there are some instructions and some loops which need to be understood. You can welcome many new concepts when you hire app developers for your project. Here is the list of things, you need to consider before entering into the market:
Step 1. Target Audience
Before building the solution, you need to know your audiences. If your customers are using android device then you need to go for android app development solution for the app. Whereas if you think that majority of target customers are having iOS device then you should opt for iOS app development solutions for your on demand doctor app. Alongside, know the demographics, assess the incomes stats and check the social status of the apps. It is also better to understand, whether customer will be using the app the first time or your app will be replacing the previous one.
Step 2. Collect the Data of Doctors
You are building the app for bringing patients and doctors over the same platform, where they can communicate with each other instead of crowded clinics. Mobile app development firms first need to collect the database of doctors and verify the database for making the authentic database of doctors. A reliable app cannot provide unverified data to the users. For such, you need to communicate with the doctors and contact organizations. Make sure that doctors who are available on your portal must upload the scanned license on the profile.
Step 3. Monetization
The question “how much does doctor on demand cost?” always comes first but it depends upon the monetization model of the app. If your goals are high and the market you are approaching is larger than the initial cost does not matter that much. While building apps, you need to check the business model around you.
There are several models of earning:
i) Featured listing
This is the most viable business model, where doctors and health organizations can be listed on the app. Company charges for such listing. Member pays a fee for the listing on your app, which can be monthly or annually.
ii) Advertisement
When your app is famous, you can add an advertising area over the page. Users may see the advertisement and you get the amount for posting ads.
iii) Brand Partnership
It is the most common way to get into popular businesses. It is more like a mutual contract between two or more businesses. The on-demand doctor app can also collaborate with some other party or group with the purpose of monetization. Community leaders can help you with the brand partnership.
Barriers of the Telemedicine App Development
No industry is untouched by the barriers in their way to progress and the same goes for the telemedicine industry. Telemedicine applications are not ubiquitous so far, still facing barriers extensively that need to be addressed quickly in order to upsurge the Telemedicine app development.
Security
On-demand doctor app development requires data security at the top. The data shared by users must be kept secure by the app. The security of the data is too important and saving the data from cybercrime is really essential. In most on-demand apps, the data is stored in the cloud and built over the cloud infrastructure. Developers need to rely on the trusted app framework, where all the libraries and frameworks need to be guarded with security updates.
UI/UX
This may not seem that much important, but in general terms, user experience and design are the first most things, use see in-app. User needs to work flawlessly over the app, for which an intuitive app is necessary to have. Always ensure two versions of the app, one for doctors and one for users.
Give some different features in both versions of doctor appointment mobile app development. The interface of the app and the compatibility over the devices must be optimum to let customers use the app as they want.
Scalability
A successful online medical app needs to be rich and scalable. Many times android app development solutions overlook the scalability of the app. Always keep in mind, that the app is always at the increasing mode. The number of customers is increasing, so are the requirements. An app must be scalable and possess a huge scope for the increasing level.
An app needs to work with multiple users, even at the low and peak times. For this, your app needs to be at the scalable resources. For developing a scalable solution, you need to optimize the server and check the code manually.
Popular Features of Doctor On Demand App
When you hire mobile app developers for any project, you must pay attention to the components of an app and the capability of developers to develop something exclusive. The app needs to be designed for both primary and urgent car both. The on-demand doctors consist of the following features for three components:
Patient App Features
The app is known as the user app, it helps the patient for scheduling appointment, contact doctors, and order drugs.
Sign Up
Patients can easily sign up or register into the app just by entering their mobile number or email. It also provides two-factor authentication via SMS or phone call to protect the sensitive data of patients.
Search Doctors
This helps to find suitable doctors or users can find doctors specific to any need. Users can simply search the issues, or find doctors by name. Search examples: Dr. ABC, physiotherapist, pediatrician, etc.
View Doctors Profile
This feature is helpful for patients to know about the details of doctors including their specialization, photo, consultation fees, previously handled cases, degrees, and many more while selecting them for the treatment.
Appointment Booking
Here, patients or users can book appointments with the doctor. The appointment time can be taken as the feasibility. The appointment is notified to doctors and patients at the same time.
Appointment Reminder
Once the appointment is fixed. You keep getting the reminder. This helps patients to remember the patient and not miss the visit.
Virtual Consultation
If the meeting is not necessary and social distancing is required for visiting the patient. Video consultation is an important medium for consultation. Doctors can give online video consultation appointments for examining the symptoms, well-being and discuss the treatment plan.
Select Payment Mode
It provides the patients with ease to pay through different modes of payments. Along with it, there is also an option to select health plans, insurance, and so on, if there is provided any.
Review and Ratings
Patients are allowed to give ratings and feedback to the doctors as per their treatment and services. This feature also helps the patients to select the doctor by reviewing their ratings and feedbacks.
Doctor’s App Features
The doctor’s portal part is built to help doctors in streamlining their appointments. They can organize the cancel schedule and save unnecessary time wastage.
Doctor Panel
The Doctor’s app enables doctors to stay in touch with their patients. It also lets them organize their calendars as per virtual and walk-in appointments.
Accept or Reject Appointment
Doctors are permitted to accept or reject an appointment request from patients in case of a non-emergency situation. They can also reject the request if they get busy, have a hectic schedule, or are out of the city.
Schedule Appointment
While making the Doctors on-demand app, doctors can register the appointments and plan a schedule properly. Most noticeably, the inquiries at such apps stay genuine as far as possible. Less chance of time wastage.
Video Call
The doctor’s app contains a video calling feature. With this doctors also can communicate with patients through video calls and can have information of the symptoms patient have to assist them in a better way for their health issues.
In-app Messages
Doctors can share the prescriptions and give all instructions to the patient anytime. Doctors can review the tests and treatments or resolve the medicine question, without calling patients to the clinic.
ePrescription
If doctors are not able to attend to the patient or the patient is not able to reach the doctor, doctors can provide patients with an online prescription that will be protected in the database.
Admin Panel Features
This is handled by the admin often from mobile app development firms, where all the requirements of the app are taken into consideration from doctor management to patient inquiries.
Database
Admin panel shows the database of patients with the proper details and health issues are given. All the data is saved securely for tracking the patient’s health and making medical decisions.
Manage Doctor
The admin portal also managed the data of doctors. Admin can add & remove the doctors upon finding some issues or at the end of the subscription. Admin can view entire profiles too.
Check Availability
With this feature, the admin has access to check the doctor’s availability and book an appointment too. For cancellation and rescheduling, the admin can postpone or cancel the appointment.
Marketing Tools
Admin also managed the marketing tools, offer health checkups as per retention strategy.
Advance Integration for On Demand App Development
With the advent of emerging technologies, the benefits of app development solutions have been also increased. Going with the flow, the on-demand doctor applications have also integrated up-to-date technologies to provide more profits and flexibility to their users.
1) Artificial Intelligence
AI is too famous among the latest android app development solutions. It enables the machine or app to behave as per the user’s behavior. With the rise of healthcare services, AI and ML are being used in coordination. These technologies are integrated into the telemedicine app development for making apps capable of analyzing patient data, making predictions, and reducing human interference.
2) Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality is the famous and favorable integration to doctor appointment mobile app development. Health services widely use this technology for making a psychological impact on patients’ lives.
3) Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality allows medical practitioners to introduce the elements to the real world. It eases the process of serving patients with the best services of doctor on-demand apps.
4) Voice Search
Around 50 percent of the app searches are done through voice search. Voice search is the best way of using the searching on any search engine. The algorithms are changing day by day, and all promote voice search more than others.
The technology used in On Demand Doctor App Development
For developing a successful app, it is required to make the best out of technology. Here is a list of some common components along with the options to choose from.
- Multiple payments: PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, etc.
- Push Notification: Twilio, Push.io
- Database: MongoDB, HBase, Cassandra, Postgre, MySQL.
- In-app calling: Nexmo, Twilio
- Real-time analytics: Big data, Apache, Hadoop, IBM, Spark.
- Cloud Environment: Azure, AWS (Amazon Web Services)
How much does Doctor On Demand App Development Cost?
The cost of on-demand doctor app development is affected by several factors. Check some of the factors below as:
- Complexity of app
- Number of development hours
- Hourly rates
- Contract type
- Number of platforms
- Technology stack
The actual cost of the doctor on-demand app is justified by all these factors keeping in mind. Alongside, the Geolocation of the development team also influences. Here is the cost of development depending upon development hours:
- USA: $150-$250
- Europe: $120- $180
- Asia: $25-$50
In India, you can find good coordination between price and quality. Here, the developer’s hourly charges can be between $25 to $50.
While talking about the overall cost of doctor appointment booking app development, there are various factors to be considered that affect the general app development cost. These factors comprise frontend and backend development, app features and complexity, Testing, and Deployment. Depending on these factors a doctor’s on-demand app development cost will be around $30,000 to $40,000. However, this is only an estimation and can vary according to the client’s requirements.
If you don’t want to go with the hybrid app development, then the doctor on-demand Android app development will cost you about $15,000 to $25,000. If you go with the iOS app development, it will range between $20,000 and $30,000.
Conclusion
The increasing tendency of the population to use on-demand apps and the major improvement over the core technology has given the world a new help from medical. The new normal of 2021 includes the on-demand video consultation and better health service from the convenience at home. You can consult order and get the test reports at your home.
The blog is a detailed discussion about doctor on-demand app development from the perspective of a top-notch mobile app development company. Let’s create a better world and help everyone for better healthcare and combat the covid pandemic.
