Zocdoc launched a new suite of tools on Tuesday — one that takes aim at the solutions sold by Phreesia, NexHealth and Solutionreach. 

The product suite, called Zocdoc Practice Solutions, includes tools to streamline the patient intake process, facilitate online scheduling and enable video visits. The suite is available free of charge to any practice or provider, regardless of whether they are a Zocdoc marketplace customer. 

Providers can use these tools for all their patients — not just the ones who book appointments through Zocdoc.

Zocdoc’s decision to launch its new product suite was based on conversations the company has had with its customers, said Oliver Kharraz, the company’s founder and CEO.

“At Zocdoc, we work with more than 80,000 providers across every specialty through our marketplace. We consistently hear from them that the expensive patient engagement tools they bought are not actually engaging their patients — they’re failing to book and when they do, they’re not providing information needed ahead of their visit,” he explained.

Practices have also told Zocdoc that these tools were difficult to set up and didn’t fit well into their existing workflows, Kharraz added. All of this creates more administrative work for office staff, who spend their days chasing patients for information and playing “scheduling Tetris,” he declared.

The product suite’s solution for intake allows patients to fill out their forms and send insurance cards online before their appointment. The online scheduling tool lets patients view providers’ availability and book appointments, and the video service solution allows providers to conduct virtual visits through a HIPAA-compliant video platform.

Zocdoc plans to add to the product suite over time, eventually adding tools for things like payment and patient-provider messaging.

The most striking difference between Zocdoc’s suite and the tools offered by other patient engagement companies is the fact that Zocdoc’s software is free to use. Other companies charge providers hundreds or thousands of dollars, Kharraz pointed out. 

Another key differentiator that helps Zocdoc’s tools stand out is their patient-centric design — patient engagement tools are often designed primarily with the practice in mind, which can make them unintuitive for patients, he added.

“Zocdoc Practice Solutions actually works for patients, which means they deliver value for providers. In our beta phase, we’ve seen that practices that have fully adopted Zocdoc’s intake tools see nearly 80% of those patients complete all of the required tasks before their visit. As a result, early users report saving an average of 15 minutes per patient — or up to 2 hours per day, with an average patient flow — on administrative tasks,” Kharraz said.

Zocdoc has already driven strong adoption of its new product suite in its private beta program among its marketplace customers. More than one-third of Zocdoc’s customers have adopted at least one solution in the suite, and nearly 7,000 practices have signed up to use the intake tool — which is more than double the 3,309 clients using Phreesia, Kharraz declared. 

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