The Background:
Let me be honest - I’d never been serious about health. Like many other people, I popped a paracetamol whenever I was not feeling well and next morning I would be up and running in my daily schedule. So, I was entirely clueless about doctors and hospitals in my locality.
All that changed recently when a situation required that I consult multiple doctors on a regular basis. I was overwhelmed with the situation. I did not know a single doctor. I did not know who was reliable, who was not. I did not know who specialized in what and which hospital was located where. My first resort was Google. But there was just too much information to deduce anything conclusive. Opinions were varied. That’s when I came across the Practo app on the play store.
The App
The app aimed to make medical services simple and streamlined. The developers claimed that the app would not only help locate doctors and hospitals, it would also show recommendations, fees and even make an appointment on our behalf. This was reason strong enough for me install their app. Once installed, registration and getting started was easy enough.
The app collects your location data and shows doctors, hospitals and diagnostics in your locality. There are several criteria for search and you can search for specific doctors by name, medical specialization, hospital name, diagnostic test names and so on. The app is very useful in this regard and when you search for a specific field, you can get all related data. So, If would search for "Orthopedics", I would get a list of orthopedicians, complete with their consultation fees, appointment times, and user recommendations. Good doctors would always have higher recommendations.
The app also claims to book an appointment for you but that’s where it fails - I initially tried a number of times but each time it is unable to book an appointment saying failed to make appointment. It then offers me to call the doctor’s number and manually make an appointment. Another issue is that not all doctors are listed on the app, probably they might not have opted to be listed on the app.
Conclusion
So except for this small hitch, everything else is pretty useful. Using the app, I can also guesstimate my medical expenses for a particular medical requirement. If I need to know mow much I would be charged for a particular medical test, I can find the average prices from the app. I can compare diagnostic labs to find the ones which are reliable at good prices. There is also an option to order medicines online, though I have not tried that option and would not be in a position on comment on that feature.