Zocdoc, the health appointment scheduling startup that launched at TechCrunch 40, has announced that Marc Benioff and Jeff Bezos – two of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures – have joined the $3 million Series A funding round it raised last month that was led by Khosla Ventures.
ZocDoc allows users to book their doctor appointments online, even for same-day appointments. The site is especially useful for urgent visits and procrastinators who may wait until the last minute for an eye exam or prescription refill. Doctors can also maximize the number of patients they see by using the system to help reschedule missed appointments or fill in last-second cancellations.
Since launching last September, ZocDoc has seen a 2,000% increase in the number of available appointments on the site, largely because of its base of doctors and patients expands by around 50% every month. Unfortunately the site is still limited by region, with support for Brooklyn and New York City. Given the healthcare industry’s resistance to change this is understandable, but if ZocDoc doesn’t expand to fill this need soon, someone else will.
Congrats Cyrus! Way to go! Adam Boalt
Never heard of ZocDoc before but it is a brilliant idea. I wish them the best of success…
Cyrus is cute!
Congrats!
Sounds interesting, but you didn’t tell us the most important piece — How do they make money? I assume the docs pay per appointment? Also, how to do they get doc’s on board – are they direct selling?
hopefully they will expand and and think about all appointment making. I would love to see one for a plumber.
thanks for the inspiration friends.
AppointmentLocator.com
Hey Jason, sounds like a great idea. Do you have a better idea of when they plan on expanding? I recently moved from NY to the DC area and am looking for a top quality doctor and specialist.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
Craig, you can peruse doctor profiles and compare specialists at vitals.com.
Congrats to ZocDoc!
Or check out http://www.doctor.com which just launched and has been generating quite a bit of buzz lately.
Yeah, quite a buzz, Andrei, only from you.
Their name elicits ‘document repository’ for me.
When did Bezos move to Silicon Valley?
There name reminds me too much of DocStoc, but otherwise really good idea. Good Luck!!
Peter
http://www.thewebwar.com
OpenTable for Doctors.
AcuityScheduling.com has been around forever.
“Given the healthcare industry’s resistance to change this is understandable, but if ZocDoc doesn’t expand to fill this need soon, someone else will” — What is really the need for this service? Phones are everywhere, and so why get online to try to get an appointment with your doctor?
This is the paradox: people under the age of 35 are the most computer-savvy and [probably] more likely to use this service… However, their health care needs are generally minimal. Older individuals would just reach for the phone and talk to a receptionist or nurse in order to make an appointment. Believe or not, this “amazing” system has worked very, very well for many years.
It seems that this “solution” has yet to find “the problem” –So, $3M for this company, which in all likelihood, would not make a penny. Bezos and Benioff should have donated this much to “Feed the Children” [our American children] or try to improve the life of so many homeless families…
To Adam Green,
Online appointments are not meant to replace appointments by phone. You have to see the bigger picture here. A patient in a new city or just looking for a doctor has the option of searching for a doctor by type of insurance, by recommendations, by availabilities (would be tough calling ten doctors to see if any of them has some spare time today). It’s also about making the patient comfortable with accessing health information online. Fast forward a few years when every doctor accepts appointments online and the patient can trust online recommendations.. ultimately the patient will have direct access to their own health records.
I am not sure ZocDoc’s business model will work out. See what happened to Xoova who were doing the same thing in New York City Area and failed after $3.5 million in funding. I think MyDocHub.com has a better business model with it’s online doctor search engine coupled with doctor reviews and ratings.