ZocDoc Archive

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.

Appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc continues to expand their offering. Today they are announcing that dermatologists are now available in the ZocDoc system. From what I understand, getting an appointment with a dermatologist can take weeks. ZocDoc shows you who is available same-day and next-day along with booking appointments with your normal dermatologist. The service is currently offered in NYC only.

Dermatologists are an important part of the ZocDoc system because this is one of the areas they are monetizing. They don’t charge any fees for primary care doctors, only for specialists. Some of the services include: skin cancer examinations, acne treatment, mole inspections, and laser hair removal as well as Botox and collagen injections.

When I signed up for the Freelancer’s Union insurance recently, I used ZocDoc to help me pick a primary care doctor. The reviews are really solid and I feel more confident with them since the reviews come from actual patients so there’s no padding. If you are new to ZocDoc, check out their video demo below.

NY-based ZocDoc presented at last night’s NY Tech Meetup. ZocDoc is a tool to help you find doctors and dentists and instantly make appointments with them. The ZocDoc founders showed up wearing scrubs though Cyrus looked more like a criminal in jail with his bright orange outfit. You can think of ZocDoc as OpenTable combined with Yelp but on the medical side.

Each listed provider displays their current open appointments along with their education and experience. After you visit with the provider, ZocDoc sends you a survey and the results are displayed on the provider’s page. Currently ZocDoc is available in NYC and offers both dentists and primary care doctor information. Cyrus explained that the real power of the ZocDoc system is in the ability to find a practitioner who serves your insurance provider.

There is no charge to book an appointment using ZocDoc and ZocDoc currently does not charge any fees to the primary care doctors in their system. They noted that PCPs generate less revenue than specialists.

Yesterday they announced the launch of their new API which allows developers to build upon their technology. To kick off the development, they are offering a Macbook Air to the best implementation.

ZocDoc is another one of those unsexy apps — there’s no facebook poke functionality — but it’s a very useful service and could change the way appointments are booked with medical care nationwide. Currently they are looking to expand in 2009 either in Washington or San Francisco – number of votes will determine where they expand next.

ZocDoc is an online service which helps residents of Manhattan find doctors and dentists near them. You can learn more about the doc or dentist along with reviews and the ability to book appointments online. Today they are announcing expansion to Brooklyn. Thirteen doctors are now in the ZocDoc system in Brooklyn, mostly in north Brooklyn. More than 2,700 users requested the service for Brooklyn since ZocDoc launched in Manhattan.

What’s great about ZocDoc is that you can book appointments online and get reminders. You can also find immediate availability across the network should an emergency arise. The system also understands a variety of insurance plans and can recommend a doctor or dentist based on your plan.

Our man on the street headed into the "other" boroughs to find out what people there think about ZocDoc’s expansion into Brooklyn. An unidentified woman in Forest Hills said, "Why Brooklyn? Haven’t you seen the teeth of the people around here, we need ZocDoc way more than those people". In Riverdale, "Tom" said, "This certainly is disappointing, we are always left for last."