How to Make Medical Scheduling Software Like Doctolib

Technological advances have brought significant comfort to our lives. Many everyday tasks can now be done online, like ordering food or attending a college lecture. The same applies to the healthcare field.

According to the NRC Health report, 80% of patients may change their healthcare providers based purely on convenience factors. One of the ways to provide this convenience is by developing a doctor appointment booking system. Everyone benefits from such software: hospitals, medical professionals, and patients.

Since more than 50% of medical institutions in the U.S. spend over 10 hours communicating with patients regarding appointment booking, custom medical scheduling system development is a real lifesaver. No more wasted time since bookings are made entirely online using an efficient automated system.

The demand for such software is also impressive. In 2018, the global patient scheduling software market amounted to $235 million. By 2026, it will reach over $612 million. One of the prominent examples of such medical apps is Doctolib.

If you aim to build an app like Doctolib, keep reading this article.

Softermii has prepared a detailed guide with benefits, main features, and tech stack and calculated the approximate cost of developing such an application.

Our company has extensive experience creating custom healthcare apps and platforms such as MedRealtime, HIPAA Telmed, and MediConnect. That’s why we have sufficient knowledge to provide helpful, practical tips for developing Doctolib alternatives.

Doctolib Market Share in Numbers

Doctolib is a successful French startup that serves as a booking platform for doctors.

The number of medical professionals using Doctolib is now more than 300,000 specialists. Healthcare practitioners can access the platform’s tools by paying a $129 monthly subscription fee. As a result, the platform generates more than $38 million in revenue every month.

Doctolib has spread beyond its country’s borders. Although France remains the startup’s main market, other prominent nations include the U.S., Germany, and Italy.

Over 60 million patients currently use this booking platform. The startup does not plan to stop there and predicts further growth. For example, Doctolib forecasts that by the end of 2022, another 100,000 medical professionals will join the platform.

So, Doctolib-like app development is a profitable idea, charged for success. We believe you should learn from the best, and this medical scheduling platform is a perfect example.

Benefits of Medical Scheduling Software for Patients and Medical Workers

Developing alternatives to Doctolib has many advantages, as you can see from this platform’s example. If you create software that offers quality and efficient features for patients and medical staff, you have every chance to reach heights.

A doctor reservation system is profitable because of the high demand for such software. Choose the subscription model that suits your business and start making money.

Furthermore, the hospital booking system gives you access to many users. Sooner or later, all people need medical services, and you’ll become an intermediary that connects patients with doctors.

Let’s see what advantages medical scheduling software offers for patients, doctors, and hospitals.

Value for Patients

First, the appointment booking platform is convenient. The patient can make an appointment with the doctor at the most optimal time. People no longer need to sit in a live queue or be unsure of their bookings’ validity.

Patients can also easily choose the doctor they need right in the app. For example, when a person urgently needs to make an appointment and his specialist is busy, he can choose another medical professional.

With medical scheduling software, patients no longer need to deal with bureaucracy. No more paper documents: all necessary medical data can be exchanged directly in the app.

Value for Doctors and Medical Workers

Developing an app like Doctolib opens up advantages for medical personnel. In particular, it is an opportunity to manage appointments so that there are no errors in planning. The doctor will have a clear schedule with defined time slots.

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Also, this software facilitates the very process of meetings between doctors and patients. The physician can request the patient’s medical records and prepare for the appointment in advance. It increases work efficiency and reduces meeting time.

With an automated scheduling system, doctors don’t have to answer emails or calls from their patients. Patients themselves will make all appointment records, and doctors will only need to check the online calendar.

Value for Hospitals

Thanks to medical scheduling software, hospitals can increase the level of satisfaction of patients and medical staff. First, patients will be comfortable with the proposed flexibility and reduced waiting time. Secondly, doctors will always be aware of their schedules, increasing their productivity and morale.

The appointment booking system is also a cost-effective solution. Due to traditional doctor booking limitations and potential planning mistakes, patient no-shows are common. Automatic appointment reminders through scheduling software can reduce no-shows by up to 29%.

Must-Have Doctolib Features You Should Include in Your Software

You must include fundamental functionality to make a medical scheduling software. Here are some must-have healthcare app features to consider:

1. Scheduling

It is the main feature when you create an alternative to Doctolib system. This function is directly responsible for scheduling appointments with the doctor.

2. Notifications

This feature will be handy for patients and medical professionals as it will remind them about appointments. This functionality can be implemented in different ways: automatic SMS, e-mail, or a notification in the app.

3. Activity Tracking

This feature helps track everything related to appointment booking: cancellation, scheduling, or rescheduling.

4. Patient Profile

This function is responsible for all information related to a specific patient: electronic medical records, results of medical examinations, and personal data. Allow patients to update their profiles by adding recent documentation and info.

5. Doctor Profile

The doctor’s profile contains all the information about the specialist: education, work experience, patient reviews, etc. It is also essential to allow doctors to edit their profiles and update their personal information.

6. Calendar

The calendar will contain all information about appointments. It is a convenient feature both for doctors and patients.

According to the NRC Health report, 80% of patients may change their healthcare providers based purely on convenience factors.

7. Reviews

Don’t forget to add the reviews feature to your doctor appointment system. It will help patients with the choice of physicians and clinics.

8. Telemedicine

Telemedicine is also worth your investment. Thanks to this functionality, doctors will be able to consult patients in remote mode.

9. Payment Integration

Make your medical scheduling product as convenient as possible by adding a payment feature. It will enable patients to pay directly in your medical app.

10. EHR

If you want doctors to be able to review their patients' medical history, then EHR integration is a must. This feature will enable patients to share personal data with doctors and receive efficient medical care.

11. Live Chat with Support

Add this feature for your doctors and patients to always be in touch. The support function will be handy for solving issues related to appointment scheduling.

Here are some additional features you may add during Doctolib-like software development:

• Appointment Management
• Automated Scheduling
• Availability Indicator
• Client Database
• Employee Scheduling
• Multi-Location
• On-Call Scheduling
• Patient Flow Management
• Medical Tips
• Reporting & Statistics
• Room Booking
• Treatment Planning

Tech Stack to Create an App Like Doctolib

You need to know specific technologies to develop a medical appointment scheduling software. The tech stack for a Doctorlib-like platform development may differ according to the chosen features, overall project complexity, and your team’s capabilities.

Here are the main technologies Softermii suggests using:

Mobile development: Java for Android, Swift for iOS, and Flutter for cross-platform mobile apps.

Frontend development: Angular and ReactJS.

Backend development: Node.js, PHP, and Python.

Database development: Postgres, MySQL, and MongoDB.

Cloud development: Google, AWS, and Microsoft Azure.

Payment integration: PayPal and Stripe.

Map integration: Google Maps API and CoreLocation.

Notifications: Push.io and Twilio.

Telemedicine: Twilio, WebRTC, and VidRTC.

You can also use third-party healthcare software APIs to enrich your hospital booking system with functionality.

Challenges of Developing Medical Appointment Scheduling Software

To prepare to build a patient scheduling software, you need to know the potential challenges in advance. Here are the main concerns.

Data Security

Any healthcare mobile or web app must ensure a high data security level. It is especially critical given the sensitivity of medical information.

Therefore, when developing medical scheduling software, you must ensure compliance with regulatory requirements to protect personal data. In particular, these are HL7, HIPAA, and GDPR.

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The demand for such software is also impressive. In 2018, the global patient scheduling software market amounted to $235 million. By 2026, it will reach over $612 million.

Convenient Design

An understandable UX and a minimalistic user interface will help your platform satisfy your users. Yet, it takes a lot of effort to make your doctor booking system user-friendly. You should study the user behavior and their needs and, at the same time, include all the necessary functionality without overcrowding your product.

Integrations

All healthcare products, from medical scheduling software to psychological therapy apps, can be enriched with many technical solutions. On the one hand, it is great as you can develop the most useful platform possible.

On the other hand, internal and external integrations require much attention regarding security and reliability. Therefore, this can become another challenge during development.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Medical Scheduling System Like Doctolib?

Doctolib-like app development cost depends on many factors. In particular, these are the number and complexity of features, the selected tech stack, third-party APIs integration, the cost of the development company’s services, etc.

Creating medical scheduling software involves several stages. We calculated the approximate cost of each.

Discovery phase, estimation & UI/UX design

Time: 280 hours

Cost: $8 400

During the research stage, our business analysts research the market, explore customers' expectations and evaluate industry demands. All information obtained by our business analysts serves as the baseline to estimate the preliminary budget of the project to agree with our clients.

When starting creating UI of the application and UX prototypes, we can assess how well the chosen technology stack, features, and overall aesthetics will meet the client's expectations. After all, we agree with the client on usability and screen design features and move on to the core app development.

Development stage

Time: 640 hours

Cost: $25 600

During the core development phase, our development team uses the previously chosen tech stack to start building an early version of a fully-fledged product.

Testing & Launch

Time: 240 hours

Cost: $6 480

The testing phase is especially important for collecting user feedback and improving the functionality of the application to make it more user-friendly and to ensure that the product functions correctly.

After QA specialists complete their work and stress testing, unit testing, and security testing, and all application enhancements have been implemented, your application is finally ready to go to market. It also requires post-release support to add new features and stay ahead of the competition.

Writing technical documentation

Time: 40 hours

Cost: $1 600

This step is necessary to create a single document that includes all the information and instructions for your product.

Let's summarize our considerations in a summary table below.

#	Stages	Time	Cost
1	Estimation, Research & UI/UX design	280 hours	$8 400
2	Development	640 hours	$25 600
3	Testing	240 hours	$6 480
4	Creating technical documentation	40 hours	$1 600
	Total	1 200 hours (5 month)	$42 080

However, the average cost of the ready-to-use tailor-made doctor booking app varies between $40 000 and $80 000. Contact us to get your project's cost precise calculations.

Softermii Experience in Custom Medical Scheduling System Development

Our company has significant development experience in the field of healthcare. We build products for telemedicine, appointment booking, AI, and mHealth solutions. Likewise, we can create an app like Doctolib for you.

For our part, we guarantee full compliance with regulatory requirements, a dedicated team, and a flexible approach to work. In combination, this enables us to create successful and effective products. Here are just a few examples:

MedRealtime

MedRealtime is a mobile and web application for providing telemedicine services.

Our goal was to create a platform making appointment booking and consultation payment easy and smooth for patients. This process of managing appointments was also supposed to increase the doctors’ productivity.

As a result, we developed an application that allows you to optimize the workload of doctors due to online booking and consultations. We’ve also added automatic reminders; so patients and doctors don’t forget about scheduled meetings.

We were also involved in a similar veterinary practice management software development, resulting in PetRealtime product creation.

HIPAA Telmed

HIPAA Telmed is one more platform for telemedicine that helps revolutionize the interaction between doctors and patients.

Here we have integrated functions of scheduling and appointment management. Other features include payment options, EHR integration, reviews and ratings, and audio and video calls.

As a result, we have developed an effective telemedicine app that makes online appointment scheduling simple and smooth. Special achievements include the incredible development speed: we prepared the product in just eight months!

MediConnect

MediConnect is a platform that connects doctors and healthcare product companies.

This application enables healthcare professionals to search for and purchase the medical supplies they need conveniently. Here, we have integrated such features as user profiles, payments, listings, and document exchange.

As a result, MediConnect has attracted more than 360 healthcare companies and almost 10,000 doctors. A healthcare worker uses the app at least four times a month.

Final Thoughts

Custom medical scheduling system development is now a profitable idea. It is also relevant, considering the increased investments in such software and the patients’ need for digital healthcare services.

Developing alternatives to Doctolib will bring many benefits to your business. Substantial profits and a large user base are just some of them.

If you are interested in medical scheduling software development, our company can help. Softermii has been creating products for the healthcare sector for years, so don’t hesitate and contact us directly!

Since more than 50% of medical institutions in the U.S. spend over 10 hours communicating with patients regarding appointment booking, custom medical scheduling system development is a real lifesaver.