Best mHealth apps for patients: Doctor on demand

14 Mar 2018

Globaldev has a lot of experience in medical mobile app development. eHealth is an area that has seen a great deal of investment over the last couple of years, with medical e-products popping up left and right. To make sense of this growing mhealth app market, we’ll be publishing a series of articles featuring top-notch mHealth applications across several categories.

This article, the first in our series of mobile healthcare product reviews, focuses on the doctor on demand app development.

Doctor-on-demand apps let users contact medical professionals anywhere and at any time via text or video chat through their smartphones. These apps save time otherwise spent getting to the hospital or doctor’s office and waiting in line and generally make healthcare more affordable.

Types of doctor on demand apps

There are two types of doctor-on-demand apps: online hospitals and medical chat platforms. The first type focuses on offering the advice of medical professionals, the second on offering a space for communication. In this article, we’ll cover five applications of both types in no particular order. These are just the applications that we found to be the best health apps. Once you learn more about them, you’ll quickly proceed to custom mhealth app development.

Successful doctor on demand apps

Dr Now: Speak to a doctor whenever, wherever

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Dr Now is a UK-based online doctor on demand app that connects patients with qualified general practitioners through remote video consultations. It’s not meant to substitute for a real office visit but rather to help in situations when you feel unwell but not bad enough to actually visit a doctor in person. Dr Now is about preventive measures, medication delivery, paperwork, and quick answers at convenient hours.

With Dr Now, you can stay healthy for less time and money. Patients can choose the doctor they would like to speak to and can be sure that no matter who they choose, an MRCGP certified professional will help them figure things out.

With Dr Now, general practitioners can:

Review symptoms
Offer clinical advice
Write medicine prescriptions with several delivery options
Write referrals to specialists
Write doctor’s notes

With Dr Now, general practitioners can’t:

Provide physical treatments and examinations
Perform emergency treatments (for chest pain, severe bleeding, suspected stroke, bone fractures, etc.)
Offer lIfestyle surgeries, oral surgeries, or other kinds of alternative therapies
Repeat medicine prescriptions
Give vaccinations

Key features of Dr Now: multi-platform, confidential, medicine delivery

Multi-platform support is an important feature of Dr Now. It offers doctor mobile apps for iOS and Android, and an Apple Watch app is coming soon.
Confidentiality in Dr Now is ensured with Amazon Web Services’ security system, which offers industry-standard AES-256 encryption. You can be sure that whatever information you share with your doctor is going to be safe.
Medicine delivery is a special Dr Now feature that helps you avoid spending time at pharmacies. Dr Now offers next-day delivery of prescriptions that you receive via an online consultation with one of their general practitioners. Prescriptions can be delivered directly to your home or office or to any UK pharmacy.

Pricing in Dr Now is simple and transparent. An adult subscription costs £7.99/month and offers unlimited general practitioner appointments to patients over 16 years of age. For children, a subscription is £4.99/month. Adults can add children and other adults to their accounts, but each person over 16 years old has their own private login credentials. The per-consultation fee is £42.50 and is meant for those who are only looking for a one-time consultation with a general practitioner. The Dr Now application itself is free to download from the App Store and Google Play Store.

MeMD: Doctor’s Visits Online!

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MeMD provides online medical consultations with physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in the US. Specialists consulting on MeMD can write medical prescriptions as permitted by state law. Medicine prescribed via MeMD can be picked up at a local participating pharmacy. MeMD also offers real-time video examinations and 24/7 access and helps you locate a participating pharmacy nearby.

It’s important to remember that MeMD is not a replacement for a primary care physician or an annual doctor’s office visit. Their services are meant to save time when dealing with minor health concerns; instead of waiting in the ER or clinic, patients can contact a MeMD provider and get their questions answered almost immediately.

There’s an extensive yet limited list of medical conditions that MeMD providers can evaluate:

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Another set of services provided by MeMD deals with mental and behavioral health issues. In particular, specialists can address:

The cost of MeMD is a flat fee of $57.95 per consultation, with no hidden costs. The mobile app itself is free to download from the App Store and Google Play Store.

Medici: Text with your Doctor, Vet, and Therapist!

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Medici is a US-based HIPAA-compliant doctor communication app that connects patients and doctors through text and video chat.What separates Medici from other mobile applications of this type is that it’s more of a platform than an online hospital. Medici lets you talk to your own doctors – the people you already know and trust. Just ask your doctor to download the doctor app and set up consultations when it’s convenient for the both of you.

With Medici, you can create your own network of medical providers, uniting family doctors, dentists, veterinarians, therapists, and others within the same doctor patient app. Providers can answer your questions, help you understand symptoms, and write medical prescriptions at any time without having to see you in person.

A special Medici highlight is that there are no in-app limitations to the types of services that caregivers can provide. Your providers are the ones who decide on consultation fees and work hours, but because you already know them, you can agree on availability and terms on an individual basis.

PingMD: The practice of medicine is complex, we make the delivery simple

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PingMD is another US-based HIPAA-compliant doctor on demand application that lets patients communicate with doctors. However, its specialty isn’t providing video consultations (this option is altogether absent) but rather in offering a secure platform for sharing and discussing medical information.

PingMD allows doctors to communicate with their colleagues and patients at the same time. Imagine a WhatsApp that lets you share the most sensitive information about your health in the most secure way possible – that’s PingMD.

Information shared in PingMD can then be directly transferred to an electronic system of medical records. The PingMD application is free of charge. However, if you’re looking to integrate the service with your practice, you should contact the PingMD team and ask them to provide you with terms and conditions relevant for your needs.

Doctor on Demand: See a doctor 24/7, anytime

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Doctor on Demand is a US-based doctor visit app that connects patients and doctors. However, the idea with this app isn’t about immediate consultations; instead, patients can book appointments and then meet with professionals online in a matter of days. Doctors are also qualified to write prescriptions.

Doctor on Demand offers a wide variety of medical and mental health services.

When it comes to medical services, the platform offers help with some urgent care issues, chronic conditions, women’s and men’s health, lab testings, screenings, preventive medicine, prescriptions, and basic medical advice.

However, they do not offer help with brain or spinal cord injuries, chest pain and numbness, vomiting or coughing blood, lacerations, multiple broken bones, severe burns, or pediatric ear infections. Apart from that, Doctor on Demand professionals cannot write prescriptions for controlled substances like codeine and oxycodone.

In the field of mental health, doctors working through Doctor on Demand can deal with such issues as depression, mood swings, trauma, loss, stress, anxiety, and medication management. However, they are not a measure in times of crisis and emergency and cannot prescribe DEA controlled substances, including stimulants and benzodiazepines.

The pricing for Doctor on Demand is rather simple. If Doctor On Demand is not a covered benefit, your visit with a board certified clinician will cost $89 for a 15-minute consultation, a visit to a psychologist will cost $134 for a 25-minute consultation and $184 for 50 minutes, and psychiatry weighing in at $299 for the initial visit (45 minutes) and $129 for 15-minute follow-up. What’s special about Doctor on Demand is that they work with many major insurance companies and offer large company employee discounts. The application itself is free for download from the App Store and Google Play Store.

MDLIVE: Online doctor visits 24/7

MDLIVE is an on demand healthcare app that connects with board-certified and state licensed-doctors. It allows users to avoid waiting lines and the inconvenience of going to a hospital. Such medical apps for patients are a low-cost alternative to expensive urgent care centers and distant emergency rooms.

Users are free to decide on the day and time of their appointment. If necessary, via this doctor mobile application, a user can book an appointment at night, on weekends, and on holidays. Users also can choose their doctors from a national virtual visit network or they can choose the first available therapist. In case they want to meet the same specialist on their second virtual visit, they can make a request. As for the prescriptions, they can be sent to any pharmacy of the users’ choice.

MDLIVE mhealth mobile app has licensed physicians in all 50 states. Their specialists are ready to provide care for 50+ routine medical conditions, 3,000+ conditions of skin, hair, and nails. What is more, being one of the top mhealth apps, they offer behavioral health therapy: therapists consult patients trying to cope with grief, marital problems, financial hardship, etc.

Since December 2014, MDLIVE has been partnering with the pharmacy chain Walgreens through the Walgreens’ mobile application offering virtual doctor visits.

PlushCare: Video doctor visits

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PlushCare is on the list of the best medical apps for patients as it stands out among other mobile apps for patients for its simplicity. Users are having appointments with their doctors through a secure video platform. This mobile doctor app is integrated with the patient’s insurance company, pharmacy, and laboratory.

Like in the case with MDLIVE, PlushCare physicians are available in all 50 states: the total number of employees exceeds 100.

PlushCare physicians can consult patients on routine primary care problems and ongoing chronic conditions. Plus, in PlushCare, they handle prescription renewals and notes from their doctors can be used for workout or school excuses.

Today, over 100,000 people are using PlushCare regularly. And, according to recent research, nearly 97% of them have their medical issues resolved during their first appointment via the PlushCare app.

Lemonaid Health: Online doctor

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Lemonaid Health provides a cheaper and more convenient access to healthcare services for the residents of 14 states. Today, their doctor-on-demand mobile app offers help across 8 clinical areas requiring prescription medications. The monthly fee includes unlimited follow-up video visits and messages.

The services provided by the Lemonaid app can be split into three categories: online appointments with a nurse or doctor, laboratory test results on the same day, and the delivery of prescribed medications.

The application gives users access to a video consultation on demand. The average time for a video consultation is under 6 minutes. By using this app for doctors and patients, users can have different health conditions diagnosed, including depression, anxiety, cold sores, migraines, cholesterol, hair-related issues, etc.

Thousands of positive user reviews and the fact the application has been featured on CNBC and in the New York Times are proof that even though the app is available in 14 states only, Lemonaid Health services are worth it.

Developing a doctor on demand mobile application

Making a successful mobile medical app for patients is a challenging yet rewarding task. We have experience in medical app development, so we know what we’re talking about.

If you want to build a mobile app for a hospital like Dr Now, MeMD, or Doctor on Demand, or if you want to create a medical communication platform like Medici or PingMD, take a look at how we build software like that on our telemedicine app development expertise page.