Word of mouth vs the Internet: choosing the fastest and most convenient way to make an appointment with a doctor
The rhythm of a large metropolis, work late into the night and a chronic lack of time - all this affects our health. Sometimes, even there is no time to go to a therapist or dentist. In this article I will tell you how to quickly and easily find a good doctor and make an appointment with him.
Word of mouth
Ask friends of acquaintances, relatives, if they have a good doctor in mind. As a rule, this is the most reliable and common method of finding a specialist. Be sure to ask if your friend was satisfied with the reception, if you liked everything. The method works great for finding a dentist, therapist, ultrasound diagnostician or pediatrician. However, when the problem is intimate, when you need to find a highly specialized doctor and maintain confidentiality during treatment, consulting with friends is not an option. The downside of "word of mouth" is a single review, on the basis of which a decision is made whether to make an appointment with a particular doctor or not. Yes, even the tip of a best friend, but he could turn to this doctor only once.
Online services
Today, single recording centers and aggregators are gaining popularity. These services collect and categorize vast data about doctors, clinics and diagnostic centers. This allows users not to waste time looking for a doctor or clinic. The services will guide you about the price level, promotional offers of medical institutions. In Moscow alone, search and recruitment services are provided by two dozen aggregator services. Conventionally, sites that make appointments to doctors can be divided into the following groups: information portals, lead generation services, partner sites and catalogs. Let's figure out what are the differences, advantages and disadvantages of each of them.
Medical information portals contain a lot of useful information about methods of treatment, diagnosis of diseases, drugs and much more. A number of portals offer users lists of clinics, less often lists of doctors. It is difficult to get a recommendation on where to turn to on the information portal; you will have to make the choice yourself. According to the dot-com tradition, info-projects on a paid basis agree to publish an official phone number next to information about the clinic, diagnostic center, laboratory.
The second type is lead generation and recording services. These are sites where information about private clinics and doctors is collected and structured, by analogy with medical portals. The main principle of work is to provide a sufficient amount of information, to help the user quickly and easily find a “good doctor”, to make an appointment without calling the clinic. The services work on a commission from the clinic for an appointment, therefore, they are completely free for patients. The indisputable advantage of leadgens is their focus on writing, so project teams provide all the information necessary for this: reviews, cost of admission, address, list of services provided. We are ready to consult services free of charge by phone, recommending an “excellent doctor” in your area through a huge database of partner clinics. I had a chance to test one of these projects - the Meds.ru service. I was satisfied with the work of the call center operators. I didn't need to waste time looking for the right specialist, reading reviews, the service operator provided all the information over the phone. It is especially convenient to make such records while surfing the Internet on a smartphone.
The disadvantage of such services is the limited list of partner clinics with which they cooperate. But, usually, the list of partner clinics for popular and large projects is quite large, and you will not have to feel discomfort when choosing.
Partner sites and directories are projects focused solely on accumulating Internet traffic and transmitting it either to medical portals or to lead generation services. Such projects usually do not provide clinic phone numbers, since they do not have contracts with them, and they are paid not for recording, but for the transfer of the user (his personal data) to larger sites. Projects and support service cannot boast. If you are lucky and you find yourself on a more or less large partner site, you will get the opportunity to support the client by phone, but do not be surprised, as a rule, the operator of another service, completely different from the one you are on, will pick up the phone. It is worth noting that this is not a scam or any kind of fraud, the project simply transfers your contacts to the "parent" site.
Conclusion: everyone chooses a convenient, simple and easy way to take care of health and its prevention. I remain an adherent of word of mouth, perhaps this is due to the general distrust of the next generation Internet stereotypes. But, I know, when a health problem is of an intimate nature, it's better to sign up using lead generation services. I made Meds.ru such an assistant in browser bookmarks, the experience with which I was quite satisfied, you can discover something new for yourself.
Blogger, journalist
Andrey Brodsky
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