TRENTON, n.j. — It’s like OpenTable for medical appointments.
No waiting weeks to see a dermatologist. No sitting for hours in the emergency room. No frantic calls to find a family doctor with openings.
Online services such as ZocDoc and InQuicker are enabling patients with conditions that are not life-threatening to schedule everything from doctor’s office visits to emergency-room trips on their laptops and smartphones — much like OpenTable users do with restaurant reservations.
Hospitals and doctors increasingly are subscribing to the services to simplify appointment scheduling for patients who dislike waiting on hold and are comfortable doing errands from from shopping to banking online.
With most of the services, booking is as simple as going to a website, entering a ZIP code and the kind of care needed, and checking available times. Patients can get a doctor appointment within a couple days, even if they’re a new patient. And the services say most patients are seen within 15 to 20 minutes of their appointment. And when an ER backs up, patients with reservations are texted to come later.
“I truly believe talking to people on the phone to schedule doctors’ appointments will be something of the past very soon,” says Natan Edelsburg, a New York resident who has made 10 doctor appointments through ZocDoc, one of the biggest online medical appointment booking services.
The booking websites also are a way for hospitals and doctors to try to please patients at a time when they face new financial incentives to do so. Starting this year, the Affordable Care Act, which requires most Americans to have health insurance, increases or reduces the Medicare payments hospitals receive each year based on patient satisfaction and quality.
