Completing The Doctor Search: From Amino to ZocDoc

In my last post, I focused on my experience with Amino, when searching for an ENT doctor. This post provides a conclusion to my search and takeaways from the experience.

My doctor’s appointment was a week and a half away, but the next day I had more severe pain in my ears. I could not be able to wait that long to see the doctor. I went back to Amino, went through the search results, and called up the doctors office I had an appointment with (Amino shows contact info in their displayed results).

I was able to get my doctor’s appointment pushed up a couple days, but the appointment was still 7 days away. I started calling doctors in the Amino results, trying to get something booked within a couple days. (in hindsight, I should have engaged my Amino assistant Larry to help with the search) I talked to several practices, told them that I was concerned and had more urgent needs, but could not do much better with appointment date.

The ZocDoc Search:

I had called many doctors offices on the Amino list, but it was getting close to closing time for these practices on Thursday. So I took a look at ZocDoc.

• I selected “Ear Nose and Throat Doctor from a dropdown list.
• I had to create a ZocDoc account, with a lot more steps involved than Amino.
• The first doctor displayed had open spots at 8:30am and 1pm on Monday. I booked the 8:30 appointment with no stats about patients, proof of quality, etc. All that mattered was that the date and time was right.

The Result:

I went to my ZocDoc appointment and the doctor looked at my ears, tested my hearing, and prescribed something to help me out. The whole experience with ZocDoc was fine..

..Except the doctor’s office had me scheduled for an appointment at 1pm, instead of 8:30am. I showed the confirmation on my phone, but had to wait an extra half-hour. Luckily the doctor’s office fit me in, otherwise I would have had wasted a large portion of my day.

ZocDoc Thoughts:

I don’t know whether ZocDoc or the doctor’s office is at fault for the appointment mix-up, but it is obvious that digital health tools are not invincible to error.

ZocDoc offers very finite and specific choices booking for appointments, which may make some users decisions easier.

There are reviews from other patients, but I am not sure how similar of a situation these people had. I don’t know how to sort good doctors from bad.

General Takeaways:

1. Care and treatment are not just one category. Routine treatment is different than urgent care. When my health issue reached a critical level, I shifted into manual-mode and moved towards doing my own search and booking. I would expect a lot of consumers to take things into their own hands when things become critical or an emergency.
2. Knowledge is power. Consumers, including myself want to see relevant structured data, to make educated decisions. This includes a doctor’s experience and certain statistics.
3. Consumer want to save time. Consumers want to analyze data quickly and make decisions in the blink of an eye. Little details such as making contact info available and 1-step booking are convenient and can factor into decisions. (Amino really shined by offering a balance of useful information, with a user experience as nice as Uber)
4. Safety and privacy may dictate how active a user is. It takes a high level of trust to continually use digital health solutions for finding and administering care. If my security felt compromised at anytime, I would probably not use the service again, and I would expect most users would feel the same.
5. Reliability matters. Somehow my appointment time was mixed up at the doctor’s office, even though I received a confirmation from ZocDoc. If the doctor refused to see me, it would be hard to use the service again.
6. The human aspects of care cannot be replaced. Care coordination only works well if the provider is compatible with the patient. Connecting with a provider in-person is probably one of the only ways to determine compatibility.

Care coordination is a beast, but digital health solutions can provide many opportunities to improve care. There will always be a delicate balance between convenience and insight. It is exciting to see how we continue to push the envelope in creating better patient experiences.

Jacob Nemetz is CEO of Dash Health Systems, a company providing an SDK that makes your apps HIPAA compliant.

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