Simple Guide on Doctor Appointment Mobile Application Development: Essential Steps, Features, Monetization

Working in the health industry and eager to improve the quality of your medical services? Well, that’s a commendable ambition, and this is where developing a doctor appointment app might be the right solution! Even if you are still hesitating about whether it’s a profitable investment, this statistic might counter your concerns. We can see that the total value of global consumer spend on mobile apps in the first quarter of 2020 was almost $50 billion. According to other data, it is expected that in 2023, mobile apps will generate more than $935 billion. These figures say that building a mobile app for your business is more than just profitable.

We live in a digital world where we have a mobile app for almost everything. Many patients consider that doctor-on-demand apps are essential for absolutely any healthcare provider that values its customers. And in this insightful post, we’ll take a closer look at all aspects to consider before doctor appointment mobile app development. You’ll learn how to build an app and provide your patients with the best experience. When you have a medical app, your patients will know that you are on the cutting edge of the medical industry. However, if you are a newbie in medical app development, entrust this task to experts. This is where you simply can’t do without the services of Interexy — your trustworthy doctor appointment app development partner!

Why Invest in Doctor Appointment Mobile App Development?

Before we move on to discussing the main steps to follow to build a robust and multi-featured mobile app for your clinic, let’s get down to the main reasons why medical centers have to invest in mobile apps. You need to be doubly sure that it’s a win-win solution for your clinic and your patients. So check these reasons to help make your decision:

Improve the efficiency of your clinic and streamline working processes

When you have a mobile app, it saves time for your patients and allows them to feel more comfortable and have a peace of mind that a doctor is just a few steps away when they are needed. Even immobile patients can consult a doctor from home and get professional consultations. 

Moreover, such mobile apps allow you to avoid salary payoff, especially when a booking is made by staff. As a result, your employees can be more efficient when appointments are automated and made online.

Manage staff scheduling efficiently

Such mobile apps allow medical centers to save their precious time. They have powerful online scheduling software that enables institutions to control consultations, monitor cancellations, and optimize the doctors’ workloads.

Predict appointment no-shows

The no-show rate in the USA is around 30%. And one unused time slot costs a doctor around $150-$200. When there’s a mobile app, doctors can monitor cancellations and quickly optimize the workload.

The time-saving factor

Both doctors and patients can benefit from having a mobile app. When there’s an app, it saves users time as they can easily schedule online appointments. Just a few clicks on the screen, and they have already made an appointment. 

In such a scenario, doctors and their receptionists aren’t involved with this process. The app is synchronized with the calendar and sends reminders instead. When a time slot is canceled, a patient receives an immediate notification and can instantly book this time.

Avoid overbooking

Besides decreasing the no-show rates, such mobile apps can also avoid overbooking. They reduce unused working time and provide the patients who need urgent consultation with an opportunity to contact their specialist quicker.

Eliminate human errors

Such mobile applications help avoid manual work and human errors. When the booking process is straightforward and fast, the possibility of human error is reduced to a minimum.

What Are the Main Doctor Appointment App Features? 

Gradually, we are moving to the most interesting part of our review. Before programmers start working on on-demand doctor appointment app development, you need to determine what features have to be added to your app. Their number can indeed influence the development cost. 

Let’s figure out the main features that must be used in a doctor appointment app. 

Login. Any appointment app should have a simple login with many options, including email, phone number, social networking sites, etc.
User Profile. In this section, patients usually leave personal information.
Appointment. Your app should have easy-to-view slots for booking days, time, cancellation policies, doctor availability, etc.
Notification. The main goal of this section is to notify users about critical updates.
Find your doctor. This is where the integration of maps is needed. The main goal of this feature is to help users find the medical center quickly and easily.
Payment options. The overriding objective of this option is to provide users with an unsurpassed amount of banking options and simplify billing.
Review. This is the rating system that allows patients to leave feedback about their experience after visiting a doctor. 
Doctor Directory. Before booking an appointment, a patient should be able to choose a physician and check the profiles of all available candidates. A doctor directory includes information about professionals working in your medical center.
Real-time chat. This tool is used to provide patients with timely support and for preliminary consultations. A real-time chat allows doctors to find out more about patients before the actual meeting.

The Process of On-Demand Doctor Appointment App Development — A Step-by-Step Guide

Now, let’s move on to discussing the online doctor appointment app development process in greater detail. Here are some tips that might help you build an app that will succeed. 

Find a reliable software development team

The success of your future app is contingent on the professionalism of a development team that will be working on this project. And this is where the services of Interexy might come in handy! We have many years of experience in this area and are always ready to build an app that will let your business grow. From prototyping to uploading a ready application to stores — our team will do our utmost to develop a doctor appointment application for your medical center.

Prepare your doctor database

The process of building a healthcare mobile app is similar to on-demand app development. Therefore, your first and foremost task is to make sure you have the product. For example, if it’s a mobile app for a specific clinic, you should have a database of doctors. So get your doctor database ready before the development process starts.

Verify a prototype

When the data sources are already chosen, it is time to build a prototype. To tackle that challenge, you need to make the visuals of all screens ready. Beyond this, the development team should also verify the features with a click-through prototype. To do this, get feedback from your medical staff and users. At this stage, AdobeXD, Sketch, or Figma are used: these are the most powerful prototyping instruments. However, you can also opt for other tools.

Choose off-the-shelf scheduling tools 

When it comes to building a doctor appointment app, creating a scheduling engine is the most time-sapping part of the work, especially when the app is built from scratch. However, a much better solution is to choose an off-the-shelf scheduling API (such tools as Timekit, Acuity, or OnSched). With the help of these tools, you can speed up the development process. Nevertheless, you should bear in mind that these tools don’t provide flexibility with your UI.

Coding

When pre-development activities are over, it is time to code, the most critical stage of software development. As for healthcare application development services, we love that job and know how to turn it into the best experience for you. Our programmers keep the development process entirely transparent for our customers. This means that we hold regular meetings to inform you of the job done. In doing so, you’ll be able to monitor the progress and make some changes (if necessary) at the right moment.

Factor in HIPAA compliance

Make sure your development team is working in compliance with HIPAA regulations. Here are the main aspects that have to be taken into consideration:

PHI data encryption;
HIPAA-as-a-Service cloud platforms;
SSL connections.

Test your app

You can’t release your app until you thoroughly test it. To speed up this process and make sure a mobile app doesn’t have bugs, testing begins with coding and follows each development sprint. Nevertheless, an app can be released only after a final testing stage that covers the functionality and usually includes stress and unit testing.

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Release

It’s the final stage of doctor booking app development when an app is uploaded to the stores, and users can finally download and test its functionality. This stage is less stressful as compared to the previous ones, but it is not final. If you want a powerful mobile app that both doctors and patients will appreciate, you also need to update it regularly, add new features and, of course, support both platforms, iOS and Android.

We hope that we managed to shed light on things that have to be considered when working on a mobile medical solution. If you are searching for a time-proven team with an impeccable reputation on the market, drop us a line! We at Interexy know everything about doctor appointment booking app development and can help expand the boundaries of your business.

How to Create a Doctor Appointment App and Monetize it

We’ve just reviewed the benefits of building an app for your medical center and the main tips to follow to develop it, so now is the best time to get down to monetization. If you look at such well-known apps as DoctorOnDemand or ZocDoc, you’ll see that both solutions use different monetization methods. Let’s review the most popular monetization options that can be used in doctor appointment booking solutions:

A subscription-based model for physicians that wish to be listed in such apps;
Online-video paid consultations for patients;
Paid prime membership for patients (it includes personal video consultations or AI-based assistants);
Contextual ads;
Extra services that fit your business model;
Extra fee for urgent bookings.

All these monetization methods can surely increase your monthly income. However, if you are not going to monetize your app, you’ll surely gain profits by optimizing your business processes with a doctor appointment app.

Doctor Appointment Booking App Development With Interexy

Summing up what has been said, we can see that the most crucial question is finding the right vendor that will help turn your ideas into reality. Interexy has already been in software development for many years and is ready to use innovations, modern technologies, and our experience to create a doctor booking app for your medical entity.

Our Case: MedKitDoc

One of the main reasons to choose Interexy is our relevant experience. We’ve built a doctor appointment mobile app — MedKitDoc. It’s a revolutionary telemedicine software product mostly focused on the B2B market. The experts that are using this application can diagnose 49 more diseases as compared to default telemedicine products.

Founders of MedKitDoc had a concept of a mobile app and came to us to bring it into reality. We checked the requirements, outlined the drafts, and proceeded with building the MVP. Of course, this project was challenging, but thanks to the expertise of our team, we managed to build this app for booking doctor appointments! The key UX challenge was that MedKitDoc was hardware-integrated. The thing is that we had many devices to connect with a mobile app via Bluetooth. Our main goal was to provide users with seamless UX, and we finalized the UX and UI design parts to fit the goals of this project and the expectations of final users.

Another challenge was building a separate flow for doctors and making a clean and beautiful design. When browsing the web, you’ll find many doctor appointment apps, but almost all of them lack simplicity. Nevertheless, we tackled that task and built an app that features a clear physician flow and saves time.

Final Thoughts

We hope we managed to clarify the topic, and now you understand how to build an app to make a doctor appointment! If you still have some questions and are seeking clarification, don’t hesitate to contact Interexy and we’ll help you find a solution. If you wish to expand the boundaries of your business, the time to build an app is now!