Cloud-based practice management, electronic health records (EHR) and medical billing software and services provider CareCloud and ZocDoc, a service that helps patients receive faster access to care and optimizes doctors’ schedules, are partnering to help patients book appointments.
ZocDoc houses a real-time database of available doctors’ appointments, and more than 4 million patients use ZocDoc each month to find a nearby, in-network doctor and instantly book appointments online. The free service for patients is live in more than 1,900 cities, covering 40 percent of the U.S. population.
CareCloud’s platform, which offers user-friendly software solutions to increase the profitability and productivity of physician practices, powers more than 3,700 providers across 47 states, supporting more than 5.5 million unique patients.
Under the partnership, ZocDoc will fully integrate into CareCloud’s platform through application programming interfaces (APIs). The integration is designed to address the trend in digital practice management and is a result of both companies’ cloud-based experience and aim to deliver functionality into the health-care marketplace with more user-friendliness.
In October, ZocDoc released the results of its first annual Digital Doctor Survey, exploring how physicians plan to engage with various technologies over the coming year, which found that the vast majority of physicians surveyed have implemented a practice management system in their office.
“Physician practices across the country are under acute financial pressure due to declining reimbursement and evolving government mandates, leaving many concerned about their ability to accommodate patients as millions of newly insured Americans enter the health care system,” Albert Santalo, CEO and chairman of CareCloud, said in a statement. “Our partnership with ZocDoc exemplifies our strategy of opening our platform to work with the most innovative health care IT and non-health care companies alike to deliver practical, cloud-based solutions that enhance patient engagement and ultimately support the financial health of clients’ businesses.”
ZocDoc boasted that appointments made through the company have grown more than 200 percent year over year, and patients have booked more than 1,000 different types of procedures on ZocDoc to date.
“Our clients tell us that a robust integration of best-in-class software is increasingly crucial for their practices, and good for their patients,” ZocDoc founder and chief operating officer Oliver Kharraz said in a statement. “These savvy providers want these services–which they consider essential for their practices–to work together seamlessly. This partnership with CareCloud reflects our dedication to delivering the interoperability that they require.”
Earlier this month, CareCloud announced a partnership with file-sharing site Box at the annual Health 2.0 Fall Conference on Oct. 2. The agreement will see Box’s secure content-sharing and collaboration capabilities integrated into the CareCloud cloud-based platform.