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.