In this coronavirus pandemic, people who don’t even want to see the hospital are facing issues for their daily checkups and other health consultation. They have a fear of getting infected by going into hospitals. While the medical services are available, people are practicing social-distancing in such a manner that they want to avoid hospitals & medical health to not get infected. However, as COVID-19 makes the people stay indoors, health consultation has seen a considerable surge. In this critical time, the need for offering adequate healthcare has almost crossed its threshold. In a massive country like India, where there are significantly fewer doctors in accordance with its massive population, healthcare apps like Practo are the future.
With the 4G internet and smartphones, people are now more technology savvy. They are utilizing technology in every possible manner to avoid social activities such as students taking online lectures, employs working from home, and most essential doctors are giving consultation through mobile apps like Practo.
Patients who are having health diseases like common cold, flu, cough, and fever can easily leverage healthcare apps. Recently in India, due to lockdown, the online healthcare sector sees a massive growth of 60 percent. Practo saw a surge of 16% per week growth, with an average of 20% per month. On the Practo app, more than 20 million patients are coming on the app every month and eConsults, of which more than 10% of people are from the Bengaluru alone. You would be surprised to know more than half of the eConsults on the app were related to coronavirus, with most queries coming from the people who are aged between 20 and 30. Most of the queries were regarding fever, cough, cold, sore throat and body ache. These queries have increased by one-third in this pandemic.
In this blog, we are going to discuss all the aspects of developing a healthcare app like Practo. Practo has reached more than 5 million downloads on the app stores and ranks top on the Play Store in the health and medical category. There are 200,000+ doctors on Practo. The annual revenue of the app must is more than $15 million.
Why there is a need for an app like Practo?
An ill person always requires immediate treatment. But due to long queues and huge rush at clinics and hospitals, it can lead to any mishappening. Also, many people with minute health problems often find arduous to go for a health checkup.
But an online consultation with a doctor gives you an opportunity to get treatment while sitting in your home or office. It is a highly convenient option for a quick consultation. Not just that, you can choose from a list of specialized doctors by going through their experience, reviews, and ratings.
An online healthcare app is not just limited to appointment booking. The patients can look for an experienced and specialized doctor near their location, book a test, online order of medicines, and online consultation with doctors through chat or video call too.
It is also helpful for doctors and medical professionals as they can witness more patients within a less span of time and without going anywhere.
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Business Model of App like Practo
As per research, nearly 42% of the users are ready to book their appointment with doctors online rather than booking by phone. There are many healthcare apps available in the market, such as Practo, Lybrate, DocsApp, mfine, PharmEasy, etc. But the most superior business model is of the Practo app.
Even in today’s technological era, we often prefer to visit a doctor by the traditional method. But a medical appointment booking app can reduce the efforts by booking an appointment at their own convenient time. It is also great for doctors as they don’t require a huge place to manage their visitors.
You can easily understand how a healthcare app is helpful for doctors and patients by these two scenarios:
1st Scenario
A patient will visit a doctor, waits in a queue for hours. If prescribed any test, then again for the results, buy medicines, and leave.
2nd Scenario
A patient will download the app and search for a nearby relevant specialist doctor. On the doctor’s profile, he will check the reviews, ratings, and other specializations.
After booking an appointment, the patient will visit the doctor. The doctor will examine the patient, perform the tests, and upload the report to the app. The doctor can see the report and based on the diagnosis of prescribed medicines to the patients. Patients can book medicines, and a delivery boy will deliver medicines to their doorsteps.
Definitely this scenario is more hassle-free in comparison to the first one. Practo gets its revenue through SaaS sales, a commission from patients and doctors, and ad-space selling. There are 3 main sources of revenue:
Practo Ray
It is a cloud-based software for doctors. The doctors need to buy this software on the annual contract basis for managing the healthcare data of their patients. They can also avail of this software on a monthly fee basis.
Practo Reach
This portal is built for patients showing contextual ads of hospitals and clinics. There is also a premium listing feature for doctors, clinics, and hospitals so that they will come on top search results.
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Delivering Medicines
Practo also sells and delivers medicines to the patients, medical stores on time.
Apart from these, the other revenue methods by which a healthcare app can make money are:
Subscription
Users can subscribe to the app for getting some extra benefits. For e.g., there is a $99 per month fee on HealthTap to get unlimited answers for queries by doctors through call or text.
Video Consultation Fees
You can include a video consultation feature on the app, which is a paid feature. For a particular duration of a video call, the user has to pay a reasonable amount.
Features of a healthcare app
For developing a successful healthcare application, we have listed out the necessary features that should be implemented in the app. These features will help the doctors and patients to bridge their communication gap and make your app more valuable.
For Patients
While developing an app for patients, you must remember that the user experience should be highly smooth. The other features should be:
Sign-Up and log in:
The patients can easily Sign Up on the app smoothly and can easily understand the purpose and flow of the app.
Search a Doctor/Clinic/Hospital:
The patients should be able to find the doctor, clinic, or hospital in their nearby locations.
Book an Appointment:
After finding the doctor, the patients should be able to book the appointment online.
Clinical Records:
Patients can upload and store their prescriptions, reports, and other treatment documents online on your app.
Call and Chat Feature:
Doctors and patients should be able to connect with each other through chat, call, or video call.
Online Payment:
A highly secure and convenient payment gateway allow the patients to make an online payment for the services easily.
Pharmacy:
With this feature, patients can order medicines as per their needs.
Review and Ratings:
After getting the consultation from the doctor, and other services, the patient should be able to give feedback on the treatment received.
For Doctors
Sign Up and log in:
Likewise, patients, the doctors are not necessarily tech-savvy. Hence, the sign-up process of doctors should also be very easy.
Creating Profile:
The doctors would be able to create a profile where they can mention their specialty, degree, experience, and other details.
Appointment Management:
The doctors will receive notifications of their appointments with the patients. They can view, book, and complete, and even cancel the appointments.
Chat and Call:
The doctors can give consultation to the patients through chat/call to the users.
Admin Panel
Dashboard:
The admin can get a complete overview of the doctors and patients using the application.
Payments:
Admin would be able to manage the payments from his end, such as commission from doctors, payment of medicines by patients, etc.
User Management:
Admin would be able to manage the queries and other problems of users.
Doctors Management:
Approval of doctors and managing multiple aspects of doctor’s profile, clinic, hospitals, etc.
Push Notifications:
Sending push notifications to the users regarding new offers, services, and other updates.
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How much does it cost to develop a healthcare app like Practo?
There are several factors which will decide the cost of developing the application like Practo, such as:
The platform for which you want to develop the app is a deciding factor for cost. Mostly, iOS app development is costlier than Android app development.
Design
If you want your app to be captivating and well attractive for the users, then you may require some additional resources which can increase the cost.
Features and Functionalities
There are many features and functionalities which will decide the cost of your healthcare mobile app development, such as:
- Geolocation Features
- Data Sync
- Calendar
- Camera, Call and chat
- Social media integration
- Usage Analytics
Hire Experienced Mobile Application Developers
You can’t just choose an average team for developing such a huge app. Rookies might end up developing an app that is not competent enough to function. Therefore, you must hire an expert team who are proficient in developing on-demand apps and have a proven track record of building complex mobile apps. At Amplework, the best mobile application development company in India, we have expertise in developing On-demand mobile apps as per the client requirements.
