How to Build a Telemedicine App Like Halodoc?

The need for medicare and health facilities has never been more than today. Virals, viruses, pollution, busy lifestyle, and everyday emerging new diseases make it crucial that we are always connected with the health facilities. Telemedicine fulfills this need by connecting patients and doctors virtually in no time. 

In this busy lifestyle, one can not always stick to a hospital. The need for medicare can fall upon the roof while a person is traveling, out of town, in a rural area, or a medically underserved area. We can not always access medicare in physical terms, so telemedicine makes it available for use in virtual terms.

What Is Telemedicine? 

Telemedicine, in simple terms, is a concept that talks about providing medical and health care services via online means. Here, doctors and patients don’t visit each other physically. Instead, they connect virtually, share important information, recommend the medication and deliver the medicines. The concept is nothing less than a splendor innovation for millions who seek medicare but don’t have access to it. Virtually refers to via phone, mobile application, or some other electronic means to share and receive information. Halodoc is one of the biggest Telemedicine platforms in Indonesia.

What is Halodoc?

Halodoc is an Indonesia-based startup established in 2016. The platform is focused on providing Telemedicine services to people around the nation. Indonesia is a country with minimal health facilities. Accessing medicare is not that easy for the population. So, an app with a concept like telemedicine is a life-saving facility for people out there. Having traveled a journey of more than half a decade, the application now connects 10 million users to more than 22,000 general practitioners and 1200+ pharmacies.

Business Model of Halodoc App 

Halodoc works on a vision to connect the healthcare seeker to healthcare providers. Getting to the hospital might not be accessible all the time for various reasons, whether it be the distance, lack of time, traffic, unavailability of care, or anything else. So, Halodoc brings healthcare services to the smartphones of patients. 

• One can simply use Halodoc to connect to a doctor via video call, voice call, text, messages, etc. 
• By communicating about the symptoms, problems, or situation, patients can get medical advice and consultation from the doctors. 
• With certain information, doctors go through patients’ past medical history and suggest treatment accordingly. 
• Suppose a patient is in a medically underserved area and doesn’t have access to pharmacies and medicines. 
• In that case, Halodoc delivers the same to the patient’s location within minutes without any inconvenience. 
• Every patient is charged online for getting a consultation (which is very affordable). The fee is paid to doctors after cutting their share as an income to Halodoc.

What Market Stats Say About Telemedicine? 

One might compromise with anything but not with health. At the same time, a concept like telemedicine makes healthcare even more accessible; thus, there is no way that any hurdle can hinder the growth of such a concept. The Global Telemedicine market was valued at $49.9 billion in 2019, which is expected to multiply its worth four times by 2023, taking it to $194.1 billion. The same market is to achieve a valuation of $459.8 billion by 2030.

The COVID pandemic played an enormous role in the burgeoning growth of the telemedicine sector. According to stats, the use of telehealth by patients in May 2020 climbed to 46%, which was 11% in 2019.

Benefits of Having a Telehealth App Like Halodoc

Halodoc offers benefits to both the service providers and service seekers. Let’s talk about both one by one

Benefits for Service Providers 

• Remote monitoring of patients has improved the engagement capabilities of doctors and nurses. They don’t have to deal with the rush of walking into the clinic. Rather, they can simply handle the patients virtually and tell them the tips for self-care to further minimize the burden.
• Remote monitoring of patients allows healthcare service providers to attend to more patients than traditional monitoring. 
• The telemedicine concept significantly helps increase revenue as they no longer need to invest heavily in the infrastructure. 
• The quality of service enhances automatically when they don’t have to travel long distances, deal with long traffic, or handle the queue outside the cabin. 
• By providing the remote diagnosis and monitoring, service providers can ensure that the patient receives complete medication.

Benefits for Patients 

• People in the 21st century are technologically exposed, and connecting a video call is no longer a big deal. So, telemedicine has become very easy to use for patients.
• Halodoc is much faster than that traditional medicare services. Patients can take consultations with their doctors within minutes. 
• Telemedicine offers greater connectivity by removing physical hurdles and obstructions. 
• Halodoc is more flexible in terms of time for patients as they can connect to the doctor irrespective of what time it is. 
• Following the traditional approach, patients have limited options of service providers to choose from. It has been a nearly impossible notion to access the top specialist due to distance and accessibility factors. However, Halodoc helps to make this happen by establishing a virtual connection between the stakeholders. 
• The concept saves patients time and money by eliminating the need to travel from the course. 
• Being treated at home only, Halodoc makes sure that the patient doesn’t catch any new viral or disease by visiting the facility.

Features to Include in A Telemedicine App

Different stakeholders give their input to the app to complete a telemedicine transaction. So, the app needs to have certain features for every stakeholder. Let us know about different features that assist the respective stakeholder in playing their role in the process:

Features for Patient’s Mobile App

Features for Healthcare Provider Panel

Features List for Admin’s Panel 

General Challenges of Building a Telemedicine App

Developing an app that can be used by the target audience in an emergency time is not an easy task. There might be situations where complexity, bugs, or slow loading of the application might cost the patient’s life. So, several challenges are faced while developing a telemedical app, unlike other standard apps where users can afford the delay and obstructions:

1. Interface Design 

Users of telemedicine apps are primarily patients who might have difficulty in reading small text, may be unconscious of certain colors, not in the situation to perform any actions like typing or calling, or might even be struggling to utter a word. So, it is a big challenge to design an interface that can support the patient even in a situation when they are not able to give the command. 

So, the interface should have features like increasing or decreasing the font size, changing the particular colors, giving the voice command, or making the emergency contact with a few taps.

2. Security 

Telemedicine apps carry confidential information about their patients that one might not afford to breach. So, ensuring the complete security of the information remains a significant challenge while developing the app. Some of the mitigations for these challenges are encryption, obfuscating, and using third-party servers that comply with all the rules and legislations.

3. Regulatory Compliance 

Every nation got their own rules and regulations for the security and operations of apps. So, while developing an app, functionality and technology framework should be able to comply with all the defined rules and regulations. For example, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) ensures the security of data in the US that has to be compiled by any healthcare-relevant app.

4. Scalability 

Health is the sector where people are over-conscious. So, while developing a telemedicine app, it needs to make sure that the app is able to handle heavy traffic and user base. Moreover, it should be scalable with the new features and updates timely. Most of the time, developers don’t pay enough attention to this aspect, and as a result, many apps fail to deliver their whole purpose.

Other Popular Apps Like Halodoc

1. MDLIVE 

MDLIVE is a popular health care service provider app with more than 60 million members in the US. The platform focuses on providing 24*7 services to its users with their health plan and health system, along with self-insured employer partners. All the service is provided in the comfort of the patient’s home. The platform was founded in 2009 and now works in different landscapes such as Telemedicine, TeleTherapy, Online Doctor Consultation, Electronic Medical Records, Healthcare Benefits, Telehealth, etc.

2. Doctor on Demand 

Doctor On Demand is a leading healthcare service provider app with a user base of more than a million. The platform helps you connect to the doctors whether you are having any physical problem or a mental one. Consultation is provided for a broad range of problems like cold & flu, depression and anxiety, skin and eye issues, UTIs, Allergies, urgent care, and much more.

3. Teladoc 

The platform was founded in 2002 in Dallas and is currently one of the most popular telemedicine apps in the US. The app has integrated video conferencing software that helps patients and healthcare service providers connect virtually. The service delivered by the app includes telehealth, medical opinion, analytics, telehealth devices, and licensable platform services.

4. PlushCare

With more than 100K downloads on Google play store, PlushCare has secured a table for itself in the competitive marketplace. The core tool used by the platform to connect the service provider and service seeker is video conferencing. The app claims that 97% of the conditions are treated on the first visit only. Physicians at Plushcare treat 3500 different medical conditions. Moreover, if your condition is not treated, your appointment is considered free of cost.

5. Amwell

Amwell is the other platform that brings high-quality medical care to the palm of your hand. The app maintains a connection between the patient and healthcare provider via virtual means, regardless of time or day. The app ensures the privacy of your visit and data while complying with HIPAA compliance. The app has been downloaded by more than a million Google Play Store users.

How Do Telemedicine Apps Make Money? 

At the end of the day, it’s all about making money. When hiring health professionals to provide remote services to your users, it becomes crucial that the app brings a handsome income to you so that the cost of doctors and infrastructure can be affordable. So, telemedicine apps work on different models that put money in your pocket. The models include but are not limited to

Tech Stack for A Telemedicine App Like Halodoc

Steps to Build a Telemedicine App

An app like Halodoc will require a good investment from your pocket to develop. Hence, running the project without planning or specifications in place is not a good idea. There are some steps for complete app development that you should keep in mind while developing the app. The steps are: 

1. Select the Platform 

Before taking any step in the process, ensure that you conduct market research well. Study your market, identify your target audience and then select the platform you want to launch your app. It is always a good idea to launch the app on both Android and iOS. However, it will cost you a lot. So, to reduce the cost, you can launch your app on one platform and postpone it to another. 

2. Decide on Design 

As we discussed before, designing the user interface is one of the challenges often faced while developing the app. So, the user interface needs to be completely planned before inaugurating the process. You must remember that the user interface design will ensure efficient UX.

3. Choose APIs

Some third-party APIs will transfigure your app’s usability in the scenario. You might consider some of the most fundamental APIs like-

4. Development 

Once you have decided on the above things, it is time to develop the app. You might consider developing the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) to launch it in the market. This way, you can know about the interests and needs of the users. Performing this step wisely can save you a lot of cost and time.

5. Quality Assurance 

Get your app tested multiple times before uploading it to the respective platform. More testing will remove more bugs and provide users a smoother experience.

6. Marketing and Maintenance 

Perform marketing stunts to inform the target audience about the app. Provide the new features and timely updates of the app to keep fulfilling users’ needs.

Cost of Developing an App Like Halodoc

The cost of developing an app depends on multiple factors, along with the preference of the app owner. Just like anything in the market exists between the price range of a few pennies to multiple thousand dollars, you can get the app developed in a few thousand to a few hundred thousand dollars. Some of the factors that will determine the cost of your app include but are not limited to: 

• Number of features you wish to instill,
• Type of features you want to provide, 
• The country you are hiring the team from,
• Platform (Android or iOS) you are developing the app for, 
• The time it takes for developers to develop the app,
• Tech stack used in the application, 
• Changes you seek at different stages, and much more.

However, it is a good idea to keep a rough idea about the cost of developing the app. So, to develop a basic telemedicine app with fundamental and just enough features, you will need an investment of $30,000-$50,000. On the other hand, if you prefer to develop an advanced app with better features and functionalities, it will cost you somewhere between $70,000-$150,000.

Wrapping Up

The telemedicine concept is a burgeoning area delivering the basic needs of target customers. With technology, people’s mobility has also increased; thus, it is impossible to always be in contact with the physical health infrastructure. In this landscape, telemedicine arrives with the best solution. 

The concept brings healthcare facilities to your palm. It allows you to consult with the doctor, or specialist, get suggestions, ask for medicines, order medicines, and much more. After the COVID pandemic, the consciousness of people about their health increased significantly. This consciousness comes with many opportunities and space for telemedicine apps and platforms. 

Besides a life-saving concept, telemedicine is an ample business opportunity for all. Whether you belong to the healthcare sector or not, you can use the business idea to secure a passive income for you. Just get the app developed, connect to required APIs, choose the appropriate business model, maintain the app, and receive a good income.

How can Emizentech be a helping hand?

Getting into the digital journey of telemedicine apps to make money will obviously require an app. However, you can not develop one by yourself as long as you carry the skills of a complete app development team within yourself. So, you are going to need an app development team to do that for you. You will find tons of app development teams when you start exploring, but very few of them will deliver value for your money. 

Here, you can rely on Emizentech to get your app developed. First of all, Emizentech carries tremendous experience in developing health care apps. With our in-depth research in the field, we don’t only develop the app for you but give you suitable suggestions and recommendations. Emizentech has over a decade of experience and built a client base of more than 450. Many of them are listed in the list of Fortune 500 firms. 

We know you might have queries and questions about such a big decision. So, we provide a free-of-cost consultation session with our project manager where you can discuss the idea and make the right decision. Further, we stand with you, not only while developing the app but even after developing the app. Emizentech provides ample support to their clients regarding bug removal and other updates after the launch of the app.