ZocDoc Archive

I don’t know about you but when I read all the Twitter coverage on some of the major tech blogs like Techcrunch, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Some of my friends say it can just be too much for one person to take. You might be questioning “why” or “how”. From what I’ve heard, some turn to drinking, some have begun to smoke, even the ones I thought were strong are starting to feel the effects.

There’s good news as NY-based doctor appointment service ZocDoc has announced that their service now works with psychiatrists. Perhaps a few visits to a shrink will help return those we have lost back to full sanity. Couple of those happy pills will help just about anyone! The ZocDoc service is free to use as they get paid by the listed doctors after an appointment has been scheduled.

ZocDoc lets you review your doctors after the appointments have concluded - it will be interesting to read the reviews of the listed psychiatrists.

Check out my real world review of ZocDoc when I attempted to go to the dentist.

Last week was the start of Spring…you know here in NYC we welcomed Spring with some snow, some pollen and a large batch of watery eyes and runny noses. When Benadryl no longer works, it’s time to take yourself to the allergist for some testing.

NY-based ZocDoc has just announced that they have added allergists to the lineup of doctors and specialists you can book online. The list now includes: allergists, primary care doctors, dentists, dermatologists, OBGYN, ENT and orthopedic surgeons. Assuming their business model is still the same, all of the listed doctors pay a fee to ZocDoc when an appointment is made except for primary care doctors.

Apparently booking an allergist appointment can take up to three weeks. The real benefit of ZocDoc is that everyone wins… the doctor wins because he/she can fill up their openings, the patient wins because they can get in straight away and ZocDoc wins because they get paid on completed visits.

Check out my real world review of ZocDoc when I attempted to go to the dentist.

Last summer I wrote a real world review of the NY-based appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc. The first usage went very well and I was looking forward to testing out the service with a dentist. Let’s just say the experience was the complete opposite but the story has a positive ending.

Early this morning I headed down to the Financial District are of Manhattan to meet my new dentist. I found him on ZocDoc and while he had no reviews, he had a few openings and accepted my insurance. I entered the dentist office 10 minutes before my appointment to fill out the silly paperwork. I sat and waited 25 minutes, finally get called, sit down in the chair and then learned that they had no one to perform the services I specifically requested on the ZocDoc site. Not one apology except to tell me that if I was willing to sit out in the waiting room for "hours", maybe they could fit me in. I lost three hours when I could have been writing startup reviews! I told the office manager that their first review on ZocDoc wouldn’t be pretty.

So you are wondering why in the heck I am telling you about my dentist appointment. Here’s why…

I arrived back home and within minutes the phone rang. Karsten from ZocDoc called me to apologize for what happened this morning. I told him that it wasn’t ZocDoc’s fault. We spoke for about ten minutes and he offered me an Amazon gift card for the trouble. I couldn’t take the card as it wasn’t their fault but very much appreciated the offer. I hung up the phone and smiled - not a form email but a personal call to tell me they were sorry for what happened. Remember that ZocDoc is basically a marketplace service.

Have you planned out what your support strategy will look like? Do you have processes in place to monitor and report on your support inquiries? It does not mean you need to go out and buy an expensive package but having a way to classify and categorize your support inquiries will give you an eye into the business.

Isn’t it amazing that so many of us running web service startups are willing to help our customers and potential customers at any time of the day or night but those in the real world can get away with horrible service? It’s almost where if we don’t reply to an email, Facebook message, Tweet, etc. in minutes at any hour of the day or night, people wonder.

Last week I commented on another blog that what we write is what the new crop of developers think about and build. I don’t think enough bloggers think about this when they write. And I believe that it’s services like ZocDoc that developers should be looking at for inspiration in process and details (concept will be different) rather than wondering how to build the next Fart app or Twitdock.

Here’s the latest news from a variety of NY-based startups. If you are a NY-based startup and have news about your company, send it in.

KickApps

KickApps announced today that they have hired David Lapter as Chief Financial Officer and Tom Gaffney to head up the company’s expanding Customer Success division. Apparently the Customer Success division works on strategy and creative services.I’ve never heard of a Customer Success division but I like the idea! Check out all of our KickApps coverage.

Outbrain

Outbrain launched an update to their widget this week called the "Link Zapper". We run the Outbrain recommendations widget on CN (you can see it at the end of this post). The widget recommends other posts both from CN and from our whitelist of partner sites. The Link Zapper allows us to easily remove a link that might not be a good fit for the source story. It’s a very manual process and while I am hoping for some automated tools in the future, it’s a good start. Check out all of our Outbrain coverage.

ZocDoc

We’ve covered ZocDoc extensively on CN and I believe it could be the breakout star of 2009. ZocDoc provides online management for doctor, dentist and other healthcare practitioners. Forbes magazine named ZocDoc the winner of their small business contest. The announcement came this week and ZocDoc won $100,000 to further develop and expand their service.

Magnify.net

Earlier this week Magnify.net announced the launch of Thwoop.com, an online community for featured entertainment content and user-contributed videos. The concept for Thwoop.com came from children’s toy e-tailer Brand Performance and the site will be powered by Magnify.net. Check out all of our Magnify.net coverage.

NY-based appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc has announced two new investors who were part of their $3 million Series A round of funding. Marc Benioff and Jeff Bezos participated in the funding round that closed in August.

ZocDoc is also announcing the launch of three new specialties today: ophthalmologists, orthopedists and ENT (ear, nose, and throat) doctors. The ZocDoc business model is based on charging specialist practitioners. Primary care physicians are not charged for appointment listings. ZocDoc noted that they had 20,000 available appointments listed this month. Appointments can also be made via their new Facebook application. ZocDoc is still only available in the NYC region so move here if you want to use it or wait until they roll it out in your city.

If you are new to ZocDoc, check out the company’s video demo from the NY Tech Meetup and check out my real world experience using ZocDoc.

Last week I booked my first doctor appointment using the ZocDoc service. Yesterday the company announced their first round of funding. And today I actually went to the doctor so I thought it was a perfect time to share my ZocDoc experience. The service is only available in NYC so move here if you want to use it.

When you load the ZocDoc page, you can select which type of doctor you want to see, ZIP code, and type of service (general appointment, botox, enlargements, reductions, etc.). You can also enter your insurance information and then ZocDoc returns doctors who accept your insurance first. This is a huge timesaver over calling doctor after doctor to find one that accepts my insurance plan.

The next screen displays the doctors that match your selected criteria. Open appointment slots are displayed so you can easily find a doctor that meets your schedule. Each doctor has a page that displays their training and education, any customer reviews, languages spoken, board certifications, etc. Reviews only come from patients who used ZocDoc so you know the reviews are real (or as real as they can be).

After selecting the appointment time, you are asked to login or create an account. The account creation process is similar to any other ecommerce system though ZocDoc does ask for more personally identifyable information than other systems. I don’t think they really need my birthdate or social security number so I entered fake info. I knew that I would still need to fill in the forms at the doctor’s office anyway.

Once you complete the signup, finalizing the appointment requires a telephone call in which a recorded message provides you with a code you must enter on the ZocDoc page. I think you can get the code by SMS too.

That’s all there was to it. You get an email confirmation plus a reminder the day before the appointment. After the appointment, ZocDoc sent me an email to provide a review of the Doctor. I was treated like any other patient at the actual doctor’s office.

At the end of the day, ZocDoc made it simple and easy to find a doctor that matched my schedule and insurance and took care of booking the appointment. I had to make a followup appointment which the doctor made directly at the office. ZocDoc should work on figuring out how to integrate that into their system as well.

I still hope they put up a pricing chart so you can get a basic idea for charges that are outside an insurance plan. They should also look at a reminder service for scheduled checkups.

Check out the ZocDoc founders demo’ing the service at a recent NY tech meetup.

NY-based Appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc has announced today that they have raised $3 million in a Series A round of funding. The round was led by Khosla Ventures and David Weiden from Khosla Ventures will join the ZocDoc board. This is Khosla Ventures first investment in the consumer healthcare industry.

ZocDoc helps you book doctor appointments online and find immediate openings. You can also check out Yelp-style doctor reviews. The service is currently only available in NYC but the founders say San Francisco is coming in 2009. Check out our ZocDoc coverage including video demo, launch of dermatologists, What I’d like to see is pricing information when services are outside an insurance plan.

While ZocDoc isn’t as "sexy" as some of the other startups out there, it is one of the most useful out there today. I continue to be impressed with the service and how they are expanding into more healthcare practices. Last week I booked my first doctor appointment using ZocDoc and will have a full review after my appointment tomorrow.