DocAsap’s primary goal is to help patients get appointments as quickly as possible.  Given delays after scheduled doctor appointment times average 20 minutes, and that Americans in total spend 847 million hours per year waiting in doctor office lobbies for care, DocAsap has some tips to help you get out of the waiting room ASAP:

• Schedule your appointments first thing in the morning or immediately after lunch since the doctor won’t have a backlog.  Also, schedule appointments midweek to avoid typical Monday and Friday rushes. (via eHow)
• Visit open-access urgent care centers for non-emergency same day care, as this BusinessWeek article states that they are more likely to provide care without a wait.
• Encourage your doctor or dentist to message you if they are experiencing long delays, either via email or text message, so you can show up later.

Since office waits will never completely disappear, DocAsap obviously recommends bringing good reading material, or homework if you’re a student like us, to fill your time.  We’re eager to hear more time-saving advice, so please share your own tips below.

This sure is an extreme statement. However, I firmly believe that open access to doctor booking systems would provide significant value for both doctors and patients.

Years ago, people who needed to see a doctor simply walked in, “took a number” and waited for their turn. At that time appointment scheduling was a welcome change as it brought order to the chaos. However, the results did not meet expectations. Appointment systems became complex and frustrating. Despite proper scheduling, the appointments were rarely honored. Double and triple booking by doctors to mitigate no-shows resulted in the same old wait-your-turn system.

Not just this, the need for timely access pushed more and more patients to emergency room care. Studies show that more that 50% of HMO patients would have preferred a day or two wait for their primary care instead of going to an ER. It’s just that the receptionist telling them “come next week” led them to an ER.

Open access eliminates most of these issues.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could be sure that when you call your doctor, he/she would see you either today or tomorrow instead of making you wait for weeks?

In the book, Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations, the authors talk about one such open access scheduling system – developed as part of idealized design of clinical office practice IDCOP – in Jefferson County, Alabama. The system required the doctors to provide for same day appointments. When implemented the results were startling:

• Contrary to popular belief, physicians were fine with the guarantee of same day appointments
• Revenue increased by almost 10%
• After 6 months average appointment wait time was reduced from average 46 days to 5 days
• No show rates reduced from 56% to 19%
• New patients per month increased from 78 to 95

Needless to say, the results were so amazing that Jefferson County adopted the same-day scheduling system.

Clearly, medical practices can create considerable value by enabling patients to see the doctor promptly by improving existing appointment scheduling systems. I believe DocAsap would prove to be a prominent open access mechanism that would create value for both doctors and patients.

While seeing a doctor has never been fun, it is about to get a lot easier.  DocAsap.com helps you instantly choose and book the best doctors in your area.  No more long waits.  No more flipping through the yellow pages to pick a doctor.   Just convenient doctor appointments.

We started DocAsap.com because of the frustration we felt in making doctor appointments, and we know we’re not alone.  A 2007 McKinsey Quarterly study found that 66% of patients would switch doctors for better ease of scheduling and 77% would switch for timely appointments.  By making it easier to schedule convenient appointments, we hope to make America (and ourselves) healthier by getting patients in to see doctors more frequently.

Over the next few months, we at DocAsap.com will continue to progress on our mission to bring convenience to U.S. healthcare, and we will start implementing our solutions in a doctor’s office near you.  We hope that you’ll continue reading this blog to hear about product updates and our thoughts on healthcare in America, and we encourage you to share your opinions, ideas and advice in this space as well.

Vince and Puneet
Co-Founders
DocAsap.com