Are you involved in the healthcare sphere and aimed to increase the quality and efficiency of your medical services? Then, the doctor appointment app is the perfect choice for you. First, because most people consider the doctor-on-demand is crucial for any healthcare provider. No matter, if they are getting treatment at a hospital, clinic, or private practice. Moreover, it gives your clients a sign that you’re on the cutting edge of the industry.
Statistics and insights
The medical niche is developing extremely fast, and many new applications are being downloaded to the Apple Market or Google Play. Let’s take a look at the current state and opportunities of this market.
- Research shows that the market will double over the next six years and will reach nearly $600 million by 2026.
- 47% of all Internet searches refer to healthcare providers and specialists.
- Market coverage of categories of medical applications in the United States is 68.9%. For comparison: games — 65.9%, travel — 84.7%, communication and social networks — 97.9%.
- 60% of patients conduct online research before making an appointment at the office.
- Currently, 88% of all physician visits are made by telephone, and only 2.4% via the Internet. Most people don’t want to risk confidential information filling out online forms.
List of the most popular apps
Research is a mandatory step when starting any project. And you need to know more about your competitors. So now we recommend you to check out the best examples of doctor appointment booking apps.
Doctor on Demand
The app allows patients to communicate with doctors 24/7 via video calls. There are only licensed healthcare providers. Doctor on Demand also contains laboratory results and gives patients prescriptions.
ZocDoc
ZocDoc gives people an opportunity to communicate with more than 50 different specialists, make appointments, read reviews, and use an integrated dictionary where patients can find explanations of health-related terms.
Now GP
It is for finding and making appointments with general practitioners. It also helps deliver prescription drugs right to your door, gets a professional diagnosis, writes e-prescriptions, etc.
The strategy of doctor appointment booking app development
We have prepared a detailed description of how to make an application for making an appointment with a doctor. The doctor appointment app is complex and requires a responsive approach, so keep this section on track and read it carefully.
1. Market analysis
Market analysis is the first thing that precedes the development of any application. You need to know everything about your competitors, their advantages and disadvantages. If you want to stand out from the competition, your app needs to provide users with something unique and different. A mobile app business plan can help you cover all the important milestones, so be sure to use it.
2. Hire business analysts
We recommend you follow this tip if you want to make sure your application doesn’t crash. Hire a business analyst or even a team. They will help you build the right business model, conduct a SWOT analysis, and think through possible use cases. This way, all potential risks will be taken into account and your application will be prepared for this.
3. Start with MVP
Build an MVP and find a team of potential users who will allow them to test your product. The importance of MVP is undeniable, and it helps you find the right path. Even if a business analysis was carried out, the opinion of potential customers would be most valuable. If the app meets customer expectations, you can keep changing it.
4. Create design
The UI and UX design of your app are critical to the first impression. Moreover, your application should be user-friendly and easy to use, and patients should not have any navigation problems. Developing a doctor appointment app means that patients have to quickly find and contact a doctor, so the process should be as simple as possible. You can also check out the best healthcare website designs to use as a clear UX example.
5. Development
You need a team of developers to complete the project. Doctor appointment booking app development requires UI/UX design, development, quality control, and deployment.
6. Quality assurance
Any application requires quality assurance. But the application for finding doctors includes a set of different tests since it should be free of errors. Unit testing, security testing, load testing, regression testing, and other types of testing should be done by QA engineers when developing an application.
How to earn money with doctor appointment app
Doctor appointment apps have plenty of different monetization models. Specifically, monetizing appointment decisions includes, but is not limited to:
Paid model
The owner of the application can receive a flat fee for all services provided in the application. When a patient pays for services, a flat fee of that amount will be shared with the owner. This is a common practice in such applications.
Paid listing
Competition in healthcare is not new either. Doctors want their services to be in demand to pay a certain amount to be on the recommended doctors list. This allows them to receive more inquiries from potential patients.
Advertisement
It’s a popular income model that can always be the best way to profit from your app. However, do not forget that too many advertisements can confuse users and allow them to find another doctor search app.
Subscription
Allow your users (both patients and doctors) to pay a monthly/yearly subscription fee to use the app without ads and get some extra premium features that the free app doesn’t have. Moreover, you can provide subscribed users with many more interesting bonuses.
Cost of on-demand doctor appointment app development
The cost of an on-demand doctor appointment app can range from $20,000 to $100,000, It depends on several factors:
- the app complexity,
- number of functions,
- development platforms,
- third-party API integrations,
- location of the chosen team,
- size of the development team, etc.
If you want to save money, the best option is to start from MVP (minimum viable product). It helps you to get meaningful feedback from users, understand what they need and not create something that they are not interested in. The second tip is to choose the development team somewhere from Eastern Europe. Commonly, the Ukrainian or Polish developers’ hourly rate is two or three times less than the developers from the US or Western Europe.
Read more: https://code-care.com/blog/doctor-appointment-app-development/
