Amit Ghasghase
Product • 11 min read • 16 Mar 2023
Feature Requests for Practo.com
Practo.com is a website which allows its users to book doctor’s appointments, schedule lab tests and buy medicines. In this article, I’ll be exploring two possible features that can be implemented from the point of view of a typical user i.e. patients
It's starting to get warm now in India and the summer is just around the corner. Along with the delicious summer fruits like mangoes, we have also started getting some crazy weather. It's been running very hot and cold, and that means cough and runny noses won't be too far behind.
Sure enough, inspite of my best efforts, I started coughing and sneezing, and so did my wife. So I decided to visit a doctor and sort it out before it got worse.
I decided to book an appointment with a doctor through practo.com. For those who don't know, Practo makes it very easy to search for doctors/specialists in a particular city and book an appointment with them. Think uber, but for doctor's visits.
So I logged in and found a good physician and selected a day and time for the appointment. Since both my wife and I wanted to get a consultation, I looked for a way to book a consultation for both of us for the same doctor. Should be simple enough, or so I thought. In spite of fiddling around for some time, I couldn't figure out a way to book a consultation for both of us with the same doctor. Turns out, you can't really do that.
Practo allows you to book a consultation for one person only at a time. So it's either for you or for someone else, but not both. So I had to take the long way out and book consultations for both of us separately through our individual accounts. This got me thinking. Do people not ever visit their doctors with their other family members for a consultation? The way things are implemented in Practo at the moment, if you belong to a large family and more than one person needs a consultation from the same doctor, be prepared for an exercise in patience. Why on earth have they not setup a way to book consultations for multiple people through the same account.
The Indian Railways (IRCTC) website and mobile apps allow one to add more than one person to a booking. So does every other travel booking website. A website like Practo is in effect a similar product where one or multiple people make a reservation for a doctor's appointment instead of a hotel room, or a bus or train or flight.
So I figured let me give this a go and see if we can design a feature to do exactly that. I created the specs and designs for a feature which allows multiple people to book a consultation with the same doctor through the same Practo account.
Problem
A user can’t book appointments for multiple people with the same doctor through the same account
Why is this a problem?
A user may want to visit the same doctor for consultations for multiple family members. Currently a user can only book an appointment for themselves or for 1 other person, but not both
Who faces this problem?
A user wanting consultations with the doctor for multiple family members
How can this be solved?
This problem can be solved by allowing a user to book a consultation for just one or multiple people
User Story
As a patient, I should be able to book multiple consultations with the same doctor through my account
Description
A user should be able to select any combination of themselves and their family members and be able to book consultations for everyone with the same doctor through the same account
Implementation
Design
So I created the above feature and that was the end of it. Now when I visited the doctor, they asked me to come in for a followup consultation 2 weeks later. I checked with the receptionist about the followup consultation and was surprised to find that followup consultations within a month are charged a discounted consultation fee. So when I reached home, I checked Practo and found that it offers no way to book a followup consultation. Every consultation is considered new and charged at the same rate viz ₹600 per patient.
This means I can save money if I book an appointment through Practo but choose to pay the consultation fees directly at the doctor’s clinic. I could save a total of ₹300 combined for the followup consultation for my wife and I.
This has some considerable implications for Practo. For one, usability since I can book an appointment for each person only through separate accounts. Although, I imagine the number of times when users have to book consultations for multiple people are far fewer than just one person booking a consultation. Two, when users realize that they can save money by paying for their followup consultations directly at the clinic instead of through Practo, then that’s exactly what they’ll do. As a business, this is terrible. You are providing a product and a service and you are getting paid last.
So it would make sense to allow people to book followup consultations at the discounted price through Practo directly. So I created the following feature spec and design which allows a user to book a followup consultation. It simply checks if the selected patients had a previous consultation with the same doctor in the last 30 days. If yes, then this consultation is considered a followup consultation and charged a lower fee.
Problem
A user can’t book a followup appointment at a cheaper consultation price
Why is this a problem?
A user may want to visit the doctor for a followup consultation. In practice, if a patient visits the doctor for a followup consultation, usually within a period of 30 days from the previous consultation, then the consultation fees are lower compared to the usual consultation fees. But in Practo, the consultation fees is fixed at ₹600/- irrespective of whether it’s a first visit or a follow up visit
Who faces this problem?
A user wanting followup consultations with the doctor ends up paying a higher consultation fees
How can this be solved?
This problem can be solved by allowing a user to book a followup consultation for a discounted price if it’s booked within 30 days of the previous consultation
User Story
As a patient, I should be able to book a followup appointment at a discounted consultation price
Description
A user should be able to book a follow-up consultation for a discounted price
Implementation
Design
Whether these features are at all required or not would be determined by whether a non-trivial number of current Practo users face these exact same issues. In absence of such data (for me that is, Practo would obviously have this), this was a good intellectual exercise to kill some time.
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