Zocdoc Business Model: Understanding Online Appointment Software and Alternatives To Zocdoc

Online appointment software has gained immense popularity after the onset of COVID-19, mostly because of high demand to see doctors, higher waiting time and lower physician availability. This has led to greater interest in launching an online appointment software such as a Zocdoc clone. It has intrigued entrepreneurs to know about Zocdoc business model.

See Also: How To Start Your Telemedicine Business- Key Benefits, Process & Solution Explained

What is Zocdoc business model? Which revenue model does Zocdoc follow? What are alternatives to Zocdoc? Owing to our expertise in online appointment software development like Zocdoc and Lybrate, we are often asked these questions by entrepreneurs who want to build apps like Zocdoc. To answer these queries, we present a detailed insight into Zocdoc business model and how does Zocdoc earn its revenue.

Zocdoc is a billion-dollar online platform that connects patients and healthcare professionals. It was founded with a vision to develop an online appointment scheduling software in 2007 by Oliver Kharraz, Nick Ganju, and Cyrus Massoumi in New York City. Since its launch, Zocdoc has grown to become a leader in the appointment booking market and has expanded its operations nationwide.

What Is Zocdoc?

Zocdoc Online Appointment Portal

Zocdoc is an online marketplace which connects patients with certified doctors and healthcare professionals in their area. Patients have the option to filter their search according to a medical condition, city, zip code, and appointment date. Zocdoc also allows patients to check if the appointment or visit will be covered by their insurance provider and filter their search accordingly. Insurance carriers that are covered by Zocdoc include Ambetter, Humana, MetLife, etc.

 See Also: Practo: Healthcare Done Right

What Is Zocdoc Business Model?

Zocdoc business model can be categorized as online marketplace where the patients are the customers forming the demand side of online marketplace and the doctors or healthcare professionals form the supply side of the Zocdoc business model. For in depth understanding of Zocdoc business model, it is important to understand four major components of the business model.

• Value Proposition
• Value Capture
• Scalability
• Sustainability

Value Proposition:

Zocdoc business model creates value for customer (patients), healthcare professionals and other stake holders including insurance providers and large hospitals.

• Customers: Zocdoc creates value for its customers (patients) by solving their search problem. It allows patients to browse through a large pool of local healthcare professionals based on type of medicine, location, booking date availability, insurance acceptance, ratings, etc. The consumer ratings also help patients in gaining information about the quality of services including promptness, staff behavior, etc. provided by a professional. Finally, Zocdoc makes it convenient for the customers to book an appointment with a doctor or healthcare professional by avoiding long wait time. After making an appointment, Zocdoc sends confirmation email and timely reminders to the customers.
• Doctors Or Healthcare Professionals: Zocdoc creates value for the supply side of its business model in two major ways. Firstly, doctors can shift patient scheduling and check –in online with Zocdoc. This frees up the administration staff to perform other higher level tasks. Secondly, Zocdoc helps doctors in customer acquisition by increasing exposure and awareness about their services to target customers.
• Stakeholders: Two most important stakeholders of Zocdoc include insurance providers and large hospitals. Zocdoc allows consumers to filter search the healthcare providers based on accepted insurance providers. This reiterates the need for insurance and drives traffic to insurance providers. In case of large hospitals, Zocdoc adds value to the large hospitals by focusing on preventive medicine by sending reminders for annual checkup.

Value Capture:

Majority of US healthcare market is governed by Fee-For-Service model. Under this method, insurance companies or government agencies reimburse the healthcare providers or physicians for the number of services they offer. However, Zocdoc revenue model is based on Value-Based-Care. VBC model adopted by Zocdoc focuses on encouraging professionals to engage with the patients and invest in technology to ensure higher comfort of the consumers. This emphasis on value based care has helped in improving value capture for Zocdoc.

Scalability:

Zocdoc is operational nationwide and it has adopted a clustered approach to grow tremendously in certain markets. However, there for some states, only a few doctors or physicians have listed with Zocdoc. The clustered approach adopted by Zocdoc is helping it to grow in every market at a steady rate. Zocdoc has also scaled up laterally during COVID-19 by focusing on telemedicine.

Sustainability:

Sustaining the operations is highly important for growth of a platform. Zocdoc also follows few contingency measures to sustain in the market. Some of these measures are:

• Registered providers or physicians have to update their availability regularly and honor their bookings.
• Similarly, patients are also required to honor their bookings. To ensure this, Zocdoc sends confirmation email and booking reminders to patients.
• Zocdoc uses post-appointment reminders to rate physicians to create, sustain and grow library of user ratings.

 See Also: Understanding the On-Demand Business Model

What Is Zocdoc Revenue Model?

Zocdoc revenue model is patient-centric in its approach. So, patients are not required to pay any fees for making any bookings using the platform. The question remains, if bookings are free then how does Zocdoc earn revenue? The main source of revenue generation for Zocdoc is the subscription fees paid by providers or doctors for being listed on the platform. Earlier, Zocdoc charged listed providers a subscription fee of $300 per month. However, Zocdoc has changed its subscription model into a fee-based scheme. As per the new revenue model of Zocdoc, providers are required to pay $300 annual subscription fee and $35 per booking. This model is focused on remote area providers who do not get enough patients to cover monthly subscription fee of $300.

See Also: How Practo Works – Revenue Model & How To Build Your Practo Clone

Online Appointment Booking Software Of Zocdoc

Technology and data science form the backbone of Zocdoc online appointment booking software. The digital team at Zocdoc works across multiple Practice Management Software (PMS) systems. This helps the team to partner with large health systems and small practitioners across US to serve its customers. Some cutting edge tools employed by Zocdoc to strengthen its online appointment booking software include:

• An in-house Patient-Powered Health technology system. It is a search engine that allows Zocdoc patients to use their own language, include colloquial terms, slangs, misspelled terms, etc. to find right doctors. The search engine tool incorporates machine learning techniques to deliver right results for customer’s search query.
• Zocdoc uses proprietary sync technology to connect with providers’ calendars to check availability of practitioners in real time. The syncing technology also exhibits newly opened slots in the results that may have opened up because of last minute cancellations, reschedules or no-shows.
• Zocdoc online appointment booking platform uses AI (Artificial Intelligence) to decipher, understand and verify customer’s insurance.

See Also: Understanding The Types Of Online Healthcare Marketplaces Around

Growth Timeline Of Zocdoc

As per a report, since its inception in July 2007, Zocdoc has raised $375.9M across 10 rounds of capital funding.

Here is a comprehensive outline of the growth timeline of Zocdoc since its inception in 2007.

Success Story Of Zocdoc

The growth of Zocdoc has resulted in increased interest of entrepreneurs to launch a Zocdoc clone app.

See Also: How Much It Costs To Build Telemedicine Apps Like Practo & ZocDoc?

What Are Some Alternatives To Zocdoc?

Zocdoc is one of the most popular online appointment booking platform and it has achieved great brand awareness. Although Zocdoc was a pioneer in the field of online appointment software, it now has competition in the market. Some of the popular alternatives to Zocdoc are:

• Tripment.com: Tripment is a newer platform and offers features such as booking appointments and video consultations to customers. Tripment attracts large physician base because it offers affordable subscription plans.
• Sesamecare: Sesamecare is a leading competitor of Zocdoc. Sesamecare allows patients to book appointments, make pre-payments and cancel bookings without a penalty 24 hours ahead of time.
• Opencare: Opencare is online appointment software targeted at dentists. The app requires patients to fill out a questionnaire to analyze their dental health and connect them to right dentists.
• CashMD: CashMD is another competitor of Zocdoc. It offers complete pricing transparency for both patients and physicians while allowing patients to compare prices and book appointments.

The Future Of Online Appointment Software

Online appointment software are experiencing immense user traffic and monthly bookings. Some apps such as Zocdoc that specialize in online appointment software are also offering telemedicine owing to market shift after COVID-19. Do you want to know more about Zocdoc business model or launch your own Zocdoc clone? Its easy to do so with Code Brew Labs. Let’s connect now!

Want to See How ZocDoc Works? Check out the Live Demo of our Telemedicine Solution – ZocDoc Clone: