MocDoc is an Online Portal for Doctors in Chennai; Is It a Few Years Too Early for India?
MocDoc is a startup based out of Chennai, which provides an online appointment management platform and professional network for doctors. The service is free for doctors as well as patients. MocDoc aims to inculcate an internet based social feature into medical community thereby connecting doctors and patients. MocDoc is founded by Senthikumar.P.M and Santhosh.S who both come from a IT background.
How it Works and Advantages
Doctors need to create a profile with MocDoc to avail the service. Once the profile is created, they can manage their availability and appointments online.
The online presence helps doctors to reach a wider audience. Doctors also get a personalized url which can be provided in their prescription pads and visiting cards to encourage patients to go for online appointments.Patients can search for doctors, view their profile and available time slots, book an online appointment after registering with MocDoc so as to reduce the patient's wait in the clinic as well as avoid multiple phone calls to the clinic to know the doctors availability. Furthermore, it also gives the doctor a newer platform for discovery, and an internet savvy user can easily find a relevant doctor and the doctor gets the relevant business.
Some features of MocDoc include -
- Private Appointment -- Doctor/Hospital front desk uses this. SMS & Email Notification
- Public Appointment -- Available to the public with available timeslots and public can book appointment at any time. SMS & Email Notification.
- Doctor Profile Page -- Consists of academic details, Practice/Appointment details with timeslot, Article/Journals they published, Messages they
- posted etc
- Hospital Profile Page: Consists of Maps with various locations, publicly available appointment timeslots
- Personalized URL: Unique URL for doctors which points to doctor profile page
- Front Desk: Easily share their appointment management and Calendar management to front desk
- Professional Network: Connect with other doctors. Patient can also connect with doctors
A Few Years Too Early?
In the era of the privately run hospital, MocDoc makes a lot of sense. MocDoc currently has over 1000 doctors who have signed up and over 500 appointments that it has served till now. This is validation that this platform works. The biggest challenge may come when MocDoc wants to scale.
From our interactions with other similar services, such as Practo and iCliniq, we have seen that the current Doctor community is by and large very tech un-savvy. Having spent a lot of time with the older system of files and assistants, services such as these are not easily adopted by Doctors. Secondly, the majority of the patients whom a doctor serves are usually those without access to any kind of internet technology.
It will be a while before systems like MocDoc are used more extensively, but in an urban setting, with a newer, more technologically enabled set of doctors and via education about the benefits of the product, MocDoc could very well be one of the early pioneers in providing an online appointment management solutions and being a professional network for doctors.
Are you a Doctor? Create your MocDoc profile here.
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