New site helps patients reach docs in a jiffy

Are you an overworked techie struggling to fix an appointment with a medic or does your aged parent need late night medical attention?

Don’t strain much. Now you can fix an appointment with a specialist of your choice near your locality by just a click of the mouse.

A group of former Infosysians along with a city doc has launched a website called www.mocdoc.in [1] (moc meaning mode of contacting), wherein you can identify the specialist near your locality and also fix an appointment free of cost.

Over 1,000 doctors in the city have registered with mocdoc, which was unofficially launched in June last and extended to Coimbatore in a modest way.

Mr Senthil, a city-based techie from the US and one of the website founders, says; the idea germinated during a car journey with his plastic surgeon-cousin Dr Senthilnathan, also a founder, when a common friend called them to find a dentist near his locality in Chennai.

“We discussed the possibility of creating a portal (like in west) where a layperson can locate a doctor of any specialty without consulting anyone.

We consulted few other techie friends and months later mocdoc was born,” he elaborated recalling how a techie in Chennai was able to fix an appointment with an ENT surgeon around midnight in Tiruvanmiyur.

Doctors could be identified under four categories, name, location, specialty and hospital.

The site not only provides info about doctors available in an area, but also helps locate the hospital he/she would be in at a particular time and also fix the appointment.

As soon as an offer for appointment is made online, a SMS and mail would be sent to both the doctor and user.

The user would receive an SMS/mail confirmation immediately after the doctor confirms the same, Dr Senthilnathan explained.

Soon the site would be developed to help users locate a hospital, pharmacy, lab and blood bank anywhere in the city.

Data shows that only 70 per cent of docs are tech savvy and only 50 per cent of them are willing to join the site, he pointed out adding that they were reaching out to more docs to bring them in to the site as the concept is quite new to Chennai.