The 2022 Guide Doctor On-Demand Mobile App Development: Features, Technologies, Cost

Let's take a second and consider what telehealth as a concept is really about. It's about freedom and convenience. The freedom to get medical services from the comfort of home without the need to change or adjust schedules or spend hours traveling to get a basic medical consultation.

Telehealth software and on demand doctor mobile applications, in particular, make our lives easier. They allow us to access better medical care regardless of the time of day, date, or our location. In today's blog, we’ll discuss doctor on demand app development, which features your product should have on board, and how much it could cost you to develop a doctor on-demand application.

On demand Doctor App Development: Most Common App Features

User App

Patient Profile

An essential section of the doctor on demand type of app that stores all the information about the user; their name, gender, location, time zone, contact data, and credit card info. Normally the patient profile also keeps some medical records, like a history of visits, prescriptions, and a list of transactions.

Review & rating

Reviews may go as a standalone in-app feature or as a part of the search functionality that patients use to find a healthcare professional. So basically, this module displays all the feedback that users give to doctors and also allows patients to add a rating for each healthcare professional. This, in turn, allows the app to feature doctors with a higher rating higher in the search list.

In-app video chat

Video chat is a must-have feature for healthcare apps that offer remote consultations with doctors. With its help, patients can connect with healthcare professionals in real-time, and doctors can conduct basic medical exams on camera. This is especially helpful in case of skin-related issues. Aside from the video functionality, this module may also feature text chat and allow patients to share various media (photos, pre-recorded videos) through it.

Appointment module

This section normally comes in the form of a calendar where all the up-to-date information about the doctor's schedule is displayed. Here, patients can check the days when their healthcare professional is available and book a time slot convenient for them. When booking online consultation, the user may also add some notes for the doctor to consider, and attach documents or medical test results.

Payment module

Patients should be able to pay for healthcare services in the app. Therefore, app developers should ensure that it has all the most popular payment methods (credit card, PayPal, Stripe, Apple Pay, etc). Some apps even allow you to pay with cryptocurrency. It's also common practice for doctor on demand apps to feature discounts and promo codes, so the checkout form should have a dedicated field for that.

Doctor App

Doctor Profile

In a similar fashion to patient apps, the doctor profile features all the important information about the doctor; name, specialty, years of experience, and previous medical facilities at which they have worked. Some apps may also display a doctor's rating and hours of availability right in the doctor’s profile.

Patient history

For healthcare professionals, it's necessary to keep all the information about their patients within reach. This module allows doctors to review a patient’s appointment history of a particular patient and read a summary from each consultation. It also allows access to any additional notes and documents if received from the patient.

In situations where consultation is carried out via text chat, patient history may also store all the messages too. Those apps that are managed by the medical facility directly also may allow doctors to access patients’ medical records from the app.

Prescriptions

Allowing patients to get medical prescriptions online without physically traveling to a clinic or hospital has become a common practice. So it’s an obvious functionality to add to your telehealth product. Aside from the prescription service itself, this section may also feature a search field to ease the prescribing process for doctors. Adding a list of brick-and-mortar pharmacies where the patient can get the needed medicines from is also helpful.

Patient progress module

This is where all the information about the patient gets displayed in a convenient way for a doctor. Aside from the basic medical information, this module may also display stats in the form of dashboards and graphs to give a healthcare professional insight into a patient's current state, and overall progress. The information from the patient progress module can then be turned into a report and sent to a medical facility.

Appointment management

This feature may come in the form of a basic calendar where the doctor sets their availability date/hours and manages all the appointments. Alternatively, it could be in the form of a client management system where, aside from the calendar itself, the doctor can also see information about prior consultations and check notes that they provided for a patient. In other words, the appointment management module can combine the patient history and the functionality of the patient progress section.

Admin Panel

Patient & doctor management

App admin should have easy access to all the information about the patients and doctors. This is especially important for those apps developed directly for medical facilities and managed by them. In this section, the app admin can check all doctors' and patients' activities, view their info, and even delete a profile if a user violates in-app policies.

Real-time analytics

With the help of real-time analytics one can stay on top of things, both from the marketing and technical standpoints. The app admins can keep track of the number of people that have downloaded the app, their demographics, the number of upcoming appointments, check how users are progressing, and more.

Report generation module

Reports are extremely important, especially for EHR systems. Providing medical facilities with the ability to export user data from the app in a convenient format is a great feature to integrate. Aside from basic medical reports, the app also can generate doctor performance reports such as the number of consultations provided, average consultation time, total number of patients served, etc.

Earnings & Commissions

More advanced on demand doctor app development solutions may also feature a financial functionality that gives doctors a better understanding of their income. Plus, provide medical institutions with a clearer overview of their operations. This, of course, applies to the cases where a doctor delivers their services under the supervision of a hospital or a clinic for whom they work.

Communication tools

In patient apps and doctor apps, video and text chat are used primarily to facilitate online consultations. Admins, or those who oversee the delivery of healthcare services, use them for communications between and within a team. This can be a basic text chat section to send messages and quick updates or it may be a more advanced tool that allows hospital staff to share medical records, send reports, and more.

What Technology to Choose for Doctor On-Demand App Development?

When considering which tech-stack to utilize while making a doctor on demand mobile application, we advise you to focus on the goals of your project and your requirements first.

There are literally dozens of different technologies and development tools, each of which fits specific needs and comes with its own pros and cons. There's no one-size-fits-all answer as to which technology package should you utilize when creating a doctor on demand app.

In general, however, there are a few technologies that you will most definitely be using regardless of your app idea, monetization strategy or target audience. So, based on your app type, you may opt to either of these:

iOS

For doctor on demand mobile app development for this platform, companies normally use Objective-C or Swift. Both are the main programming languages used to build products for iOS and MacOS systems.

Android

When building a doctor on demand mobile app or any other type of app for Android, the developers normally utilize Java or Kotlin. Both of these are object-oriented programming languages, and while Kotlin is mainly used to develop Android apps, Java, in turn, is often utilized for the development of enterprise apps. Both languages are 100% interoperable in terms of code though.

Web

When it comes to the web-based doctor on demand app development solutions, these are normally built with the help of Javascript and HTML. HTML is the basic building block that forms the structure of a website, while Javascript adds dynamic elements to the site making its elements interactive and dynamic.

On-Demand Doctor App Development Cost

The potential cost of on demand doctor app development is subjective and can greatly vary from project to project. Much depends on its functionality, complexity, interface, and even the development approach that was chosen — outsourced or in-house.

In rough numbers, doctor on demand app development costs range between $20,000 for the basic version of the app and $200,000 - $300,000 for a complex mobile doctor app. Don't let the numbers scare you, though, if you come up with an MVP for your product first, you'll be able to use a much smaller budget. However, here we'd still recommend seeking professional help in estimating the final telemedicine app development cost for your project.

Consider Lunka.tech Your Partner

As a telemedicine app development company we at Lunka.tech always want our clients to get the best outcome from our cooperation. With more than 5 years of experience developing healthcare projects, we are ready for the most challenging tasks and product requirements.

Some of our most recent projects are available in our portfolio. If you want more information on how our team can help you, simply reach out to us in any way that is convenient for you!

Final Thoughts

Overall, if you compare mobile app development for doctor on demand or any other product, whether connected with telemedicine or not, you'll find little difference as the process itself is similar. The trickiest part, even though the structure and logic of the development process doesn't change much, there are subtle details and nuances that can easily make or break your on demand doctor appointment app development.
This is why we strongly recommend that you get an experienced app development team on board. If you don't have the opportunity to assemble a full-time in-house team, look for help from a competent on demand doctor app development company capable of delivering the results you need at a budget that works for you.

FAQ

How does a doctor on demand app work?

In short, a patient opens the app, selects a healthcare professional (based on their specialty or qualification), and books an online consultation with them for the same day or a date and time that works best for the patient.

How to choose a reliable on demand doctor app development company?

When choosing a professional doctor on demand mobile application development partner, it's important to pay attention to the team's prior experience to understand whether they have the know-how to develop a product in your niche. During the interview, ask developers to show you examples of their work and try to assess how they approach different aspects of doctor on demand application development, including communication with clients, work planning, and risk mitigation.

How do doctor on demand apps make money?

There are several ways telehealth applications generate profits. There’s the subscription revenue model where users get charged with a recurring fee monthly or annually, or the ad model where developers display in-app ads from 3rd-party vendors. Another popular revenue generating model is freemium, where the app is free to download but some features are paid.

What makes a good telemedicine app?

Simply put, an app has to offer a clear value to the users in order to become successful. If the app will help patients simplify their life, or automate a part of it, it will definitely get positive feedback and become popular.

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