Medical consultation app DocsApp wants to go from 2k to 10k consultations a day by 2018 end
DocsApp provides consultation services for patients of all age groups, in several key disciplines such as dermatology, gynaecology, sexology, paediatrics, general medicine, psychiatry and weight management.
At a glance
Startup: DocsApp
Founders: Satish Kannan and Enbasekar D
Year it was founded: 2013
Where it is based: Bengaluru
The problem it solves: Medical consultation app
Sector: Healthcare
DocsApp is a healthcare mobile app launched in July 2015 that connects patients with specialist doctors through chat or call from anywhere at anytime. The consultation app gives medical attention in less than 30 minutes. One can even order medicines and book diagnostic tests using the app. DocsApp acts as an online solution for primary healthcare, provides a second opinion on chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiac ailments, arthritis, cancer etc., and gives access to quality medical consultation across geographical locations.
DocsApp provides consultation services for patients of all age groups in several key disciplines such as dermatology, gynaecology, sexology, paediatrics, general medicine, psychiatry, weight management etc. Every user can avail transparent, tech-enabled, round-the-clock and multi-language services. Along with doctor consultations, the app also facilitates medicine delivery and lab tests.
Satish Kannan, along with his co-founder, Enbasekar D, began working on the concept in 2013 after they realised that several health issues existing today can be diagnosed and treated online. Satish and Enbasekar were classmates at IIT-Madras. They worked together on multiple projects during their time at the institution.
After graduation, Satish and Enbasekar both worked in the healthcare sector. When they decided to start up on their own they naturally chose the healthcare sector. After spending multiple hours in hospital waiting rooms talking to doctors and observing patient behaviour, they understood the problems in the healthcare space in the country and decided to take it up as a challenge to solve it. Hence, DocsApp was born.
They targeted time-crunched busy professionals, those hesitant to visit specialists such as sexologists, psychiatrists/psychologists and those dwelling in remote towns/cities without any access to specialists and all those who need second opinion in specialisations like oncology, neurology, cardiology, diabetology etc. With an aim to make quality healthcare easily accessible to all, Satish quit his career at Philips Healthcare, where he was involved in the R&D on large machines used by cardiologists and ortho specialist doctors for conducting surgeries. Enbasekar, on the other hand, worked at the IIT-Madras Research Park. He has patented a technology for detecting diabetic retinopathy.
“The future hospitals, as I see, will be 70 percent online and 30 percent offline. You would get your OPD consultations done easily over the mobile and see the doctor on a video chat. At junctures where a physical examination is mandatory by the doctor, you would go down and meet the doctor and do further follow-up consultations again online. Primarily procedures and surgeries would then happen in the offline hospitals. What I see at DocsApp today is we provide specialist doctor consultation for more than 2,000 patients a day, which is higher than any other offline hospital. This is an indicator of the world that we are going to see where patients will primarily gain access to doctors online and meet physically only when absolutely necessary,” says Satish.
DocsApp kick-started with a team of six and has grown to a team of 100 members today. The app has clocked over 2.5 million downloads and has been declared as the ‘#1 Medical App’ of the year 2017 by Amazon and Facebook. Around 2,000 people pay to take doctor consultation every day on DocsApp. More than 40 percent of the paying users comes from Tier III areas and villages. DocsApp is the only Indian mobile app to have secured ISO certification for quality control , security management, and customer complaints handling.
The main standout feature of the platform is that it doesn’t require the user to make any appointments for consultations. One can consult a doctor at any time, be it a holiday or late night, within 30 minutes. “Doctors are available 24X7. No other service/startup in healthcare space offers round-the-clock services. With more than 2,500 handpicked doctors available for consultation online, the platform reaches out to over over 2.5 million people across the country. DocsApp promises 360-degree assistance by ensuring doctors on call, medicine support and sample collection at home with 3,000 pathology labs on board,” Satish explains.
Till date, DocsApp has raised a total of $8.4 million in funding from Bessemer Venture partners, DENA Networks, Rebright Partners, Techmatrix and Facebook’s early angel investors Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayanan.
“We witness over 2,000+ consultations every day, we aim at changing the number to 10,000 consultations by the end of 2018. We are on our journey to make world-class, high-quality healthcare accessible to the masses in the country by building technological solutions that can assist doctors in providing impeccable consultation,” says Satish, adding, “We've learnt that creating solutions for an existing problem trumps creating a brand new product. We've always worked towards solving problems and over the years we've learned that this is the key to growth and success.”