Every day this summer, you are presented with an application that has changed our lives or our habits. An app you may have used: Doctolib, the medical appointment management platform that has become essential.
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Launched 10 years ago, the Doctolib application has now become a key player in online health. It is the most used medical appointment management platform in France with 31 million appointments made in 2022. To get there, we had to convince with a lot of advertising “What if you decided to change your daily life and that of your patients?”promises advertising.
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A paid model for healthcare professionals
A success that has allowed Doctolib to swallow other competitors in its path such as Mondocteur, acquired in 2018. However, two players are resisting: the Keldoc platform, better established in hospitals and the young platform, Maiia, born in 2020. The latter offers more advantageous rates for health professionals, from 69 euros per month against 130 euros for Doctolib. These rates partly explain why only one in three GPs uses these appointment-making tools, according to a recent ministerial study.
Unhonored appointments, Doctolib’s new battle
Conversely, it’s 100% free for patients who can find an appointment at any time, any day, and cancel it very easily. For Stanislas Niox Chateaux, the co-founder of the site, the fight against missed appointments has become a priority. “We will work to improve the solutions we provide in order to reduce missed appointments, reduce last minute cancellations, ask patients to provide the reason for a cancellation. We’re going to make more changes than we’ve ever made to your appointment management software.”promises the co-founder of the site.
A model that is not irreproachable
Another major challenge for Doctolib, ensuring the protection of patient data, a lot of data passes through the platform, which has been questioning for a few years. There is also the referencing of health professionals which can pose a problem. In 2022, the group found itself entangled in the heart of a controversy. He was accused of referencing naturopaths with questionable practices and he had to push nearly 6,000 “wellness practitioners” out.