Telemedicine Mobile App Development – Cost & Key Features

“For the first time really we’re discovering physicians are expressing much more openness and willingness to consider information about their patients coming from DIY devices.”

Contrary to the obvious belief that the healthcare sector has a rigid attitude toward change, it is quite evident that this sector less or more is the most advanced and technology-driven domain of all. In recent years, it has certainly started to take new forms. 

Like we can already witness the replacement of phone calls by patient portals (with 42% of users prefer to book an online appointment through a telemedicine app), and EHRs have also taken place of paper records (87% office-based physicians are already using EHRs to access patient data Still, among all of them, the most revolutionary offering is of healthcare mobile app development. Telemedicine and Telemedicine mobile apps enable patients as well as doctors to avoid the probable inconveniences that occur during a hospital visit, substituting it rather with remote communication.

Telemedicine App Market-size and Statistics

• Telemedicine Market size surpassed USD 60.9 billion in 2020 and is estimated to grow at 18.2% between 2021 and 2027. 
• According To Fortune Business Insights, The Global Telemedicine Market Size Is Projected To Reach USD 396.76 billion By 2027
• Revenue in the Online Doctor Consultations segment is projected to reach US$21.98bn in 2022.
• User penetration will be 1.34% in 2022 and is expected to hit 1.61% by 2027.
• The average revenue per user (ARPU) is expected to amount to US$215.50.
• In global comparison, most revenue will be generated in China (US$8,097.00m in 2022).

Best Telemedicine Mobile App Across Globe

Teladoc

Teladoc is a renowned application and has been offering easy healthcare facilities to people globally. The application that started in the United States is a pioneer in the industry. It offers facilities like connecting with the doctor over video call or chat, booking appointments with nearby doctors, getting prescriptions, and everything that can be covered under urgent or non-urgent healthcare services. 

The application is transforming the industry by streamlining data for medical employers, employees, customers, and health benefit providers.

DoctorOnDemand

Another application in the list is DoctorOnDemand. You can connect with nearby doctors virtually for solutions to your problems. The customers love the application for the ease and accessibility it offers. In case of an emergency, one can connect with doctors immediately and get a resolution. 

It is one of the most popular healthcare applications that offers e-prescription and laboratory test facilities.  

K Health

The application has advanced features and a symptom checker that would make things easier for the users. If you need to see a doctor you need to pay a minimal fee for a one-time visit. You can even choose for an annual prescription where you get to interact with the doctor who diagnoses illness, orders lab tests, and prescribes medicines. 

MDLive

The application allows you to connect with licensed therapists, psychiatrists, and dermatologists. These experts are available to connect with the user at any time of the day. You can book virtual appointments, meet them, and update your insurance policy. the application has it all for all the ease it offers. 

Lemonaid

Lemonaid is a popular app in the United States that lists licensed medical practitioners of all 50 states. The application markets itself as “Online Doctor’s Office” and thus, offers services that can be avail in a medical practitioner’s office. Schedule your visits, review your reports, get prescriptions, and whatnot. 

The application is clearly standing by its mission to provide primary health services to every American. 

These are just some of the most popular telemedicine mobile applications in the market. These applications have transformed the way people looked at the healthcare industry. Now getting appointments and medical assistance is just a click away! 

Telemedicine Mobile Apps Types

Before we move forward with other details of these applications let’s have a quick look at different telemedicine mobile app types. These applications are categorized based on their target audience and the portfolio of services they offer. 

1. Telemedicine Apps for Healthcare Institutions or Individuals

These applications are designed and developed for the end users, i.e the health care providers and individuals. The most significant services that these applications offer are online appointments, chat services, video calling services, e-prescription services, etc. 

The applications are basically designed as a direct mode of communication between the medical practitioner and the patient. 

2. Telemedicine app as Aggregator between Users and Doctors+Clinics

These applications aren’t directly connected to the doctors or the patients, but play a significant role in the diagnosis and treatment process. It could be medicine delivery, lab testing, commuting, or others. 

These applications are vital to keeping good health.

How to Monetization Telemedicine Mobile App

• Sales of one-time services such as remote consulting
• Sale Monthly and Yearly Subscription of services 
• Sponsored Content and Featured Listings 
• Aggregation of Diagnostic centers and Labs
• Integrate eCommerce Functionalities
• Sell In-app Banner Advertisement
• Commissions from Doctors, Practitioners, Labs, Pharmacist 
• Product as a Service to Health Institutions

What are the benefits of telemedicine mobile apps?

It is learned that 75% of hospital visits are actually too basic and they can be instead handled easily via a phone or a video call. All in all, the money and time spent by patients at healthcare facilities are meaningless. In fact, in certain scenarios, a hospital visit isn’t always an available option. There are a number of countries facing a shortage of certain specialists or healthcare facilities overall, this leads to long waits and constant overload. So, in such conditions, it is common for patients to wait for their appointment for weeks while the doctors often have to work overtime.

Healthcare facilities directly choose a hands-on alternative to hospital visits. Telemedicine mobile apps work great at creating a better schedule for healthcare professionals, saving the time of 75% of patients not requiring a physical examination, and also giving better access to healthcare for people living in under-served rural areas.

When talking about availing of a custom telemedicine mobile app, there are a lot more advantages that we cannot ignore:

• Universality of Medical Services

With the telemedicine Mobile app, it would be easier for the patients to connect with medical consultants for their assistance. Also, the medical practitioner would not need to ask you for your medical history as it would already be available on the portal.

When considering the Stats by NHRA, we would see that 39.8 physicians per 100,000 people, compared to 53.3 physicians per 100,000 in urban areas, are dedicated to providing services to their patients with the help of telemedicine mobile applications.

• Ditch the Time Factor

It would become quite easier for the patients to avail required medical assistance without much ado. The time factor would not be an issue anymore. You can build the feature to let patients connect with the respective team of patients as and when required.

• Ease of Record Keeping 

When it comes to talking about record-keeping it has become quite easier now. With digitalization, the medical practitioners and both of you can access your medical history without much hustle. The best part is these solutions are developed keeping in mind the safety and security of the data.

• Unified Patient Management System

With a unified patient management system, you would not need to worry about carrying your medical records with you. Telemedicine app development solutions can help you keep up with consultations, update prescriptions, disease monitoring, etc.

• Efficient Time Management of Healthcare Specialists 

Time management and work management become easier for medical practitioners. Thus, they can examine more patients in less time. With work overload, management telemedicine solutions can offer a better work-life balance.

• Facilitate Administrative Operations 

Administrative officials can focus on other important works other than being devoted to record maintaining. We have recorded dermatology, psychological and behavioral health, cardiology, and chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and more.

• Single Window for Treating more Patients and Increase the Overall Revenue

If you look through the lens of a doctor, telemedicine mobile apps allow you to see a lot of patients in their visiting hours because of the reduced administrative work. If a doctor is seeing a lot more patients then it will boost its revenue and also reduce stress levels.

Who Needs Custom Telemedicine Mobile Apps?

Physicians today prefer video consultations over the phone or email, thus physicians require customized Telemedicine solutions for better & remote consultation.

Healthcare Consultants: They can keep, exchange, and securely access assessment records on patient-focused websites and mobile applications, which is of great use to them.

Pharmacists: Well, they will be able to deliver great services only when they are not confused while delivering the correct prescription in coordination with patients and physicians.

Hospital & Care provider: They will be able to determine when to push the accuracy limit and it will be simpler to retrieve previous information if they have an electronic prescription app or website.

Physicians: By using telemedicine applications, doctors may treat patients accurately and without any ambiguity of any type. The quality and safety of the prescription process may be improved with tailored e-Prescription solutions. A prescription may be quickly turned into a digital file and delivered from one pharmacy to another.

Patients: Patients can schedule virtual visits, request video consultations, access new prescriptions, find out when to take their medications, and order medication from nearby pharmacies using the telemedicine mobile app.

This results in:

Better Efficiency: reduces the amount of time pharmacy staff must spend manually entering data or interpreting handwriting. It also gets rid of follow-up calls from the pharmacy to the doctor.

Enhanced Care: There is no longer a requirement for pharmacists to decipher handwritten prescriptions and reduce the possibility of mistakes. Patients also need not to remember medication and instructions as complete treatment and patient history is recorded.

Also, Read: Telehealth Software Solutions & App Development – Cost and Features

What Are the Key Functionalities of Telemedicine App?

When talking about the functionalities of any telemedicine application, then we need to cover the following points. These functionalities add to the ease of working on your application and help you deliver solutions that are easy to market. Your customers would love your solutions if you make sure to cover these functionalities in your telemedicine app.

Real-time consultation: Often, in case of minor or repetitive incidents, patients may already know the correct diagnosis, so they just need confirmation from a professional. In such a scenario, getting in touch with a health specialist via a telemedicine mobile app can be more effective than an in-person appointment. A patient can book an e-visit after answering a few questions related to their symptoms and scroll through a list of available doctors. Once a patient has chosen one of the specialists, she can book an e-visit as per their convenience.

Prescription renewal: These visits when a patient requires getting a renewed prescription are certainly very frustrating. Telemedicine mobile app comes in handy in renewing prescriptions even on the very day the patients have run out of medication. Patients can schedule an e-visit to discuss their condition with their doctor and get a renewed prescription sent straight through the mobile app. Then can get it printed out or even choose to show the electronic version at the pharmacy store.

Medication advice: Often patients have certain questions regarding the medication, mainly when it has been prescribed for the first time. There could be certain side effects or might want to know if it is okay to decrease the dosage after acute symptoms have disappeared. Using a telemedicine system, patients can send a photo of their medication prescription or either type their query in a message or can even book a call with their doctor to ask them directly.

Photo/Video-based consultation: There are certain specialists, mainly dermatologists, who admit being able to diagnose a patient within the first two seconds of visual contact, like in case of skin problems, eye infections, bruises & similar conditions with visible symptoms. Here, a consultation via Telemedicine mobile app would be enough. The patient can fill a small questionnaire, after which the app will allow them to take a picture of the problematic spot and send it to a healthcare professional, who will accordingly establish a diagnosis and message it to the patient along with a treatment planner. In case the specialist requires more info, she can schedule a video call with the patient or send lab test orders through the telemedicine mobile app.

These are some of the most important functionalities that our telemedicine app development services integrate with your solution. Along with these basic functionalities, it is important that they do not miss adding interesting and user-friendly experiences in your application that would help you earn the best results.

Features of Efficient Telemedicine Mobile App

In order to make online visits as informative as face-to-face appointments, a number of telemedicine app development firms offer countless feature-rich telemedicine solutions with great functionality. Let’s explore them here:

Online-Appointment Scheduling: The doctors can manage their availability by adding specific appointment timings directly to the online calendar. The patient simply needs to log into the App, view available timings, and select what suits them most.

Patient & Doctor Dashboard: The dashboard page is what the patients & doctors will see when they first log in to the app. For physicians, it displays a list of pending appointments and new appointment requests. From this place, the video sessions can be launched directly and treatment notes can be edited. For patients, the page will display a confirmed appointment, medication planner, video-appointment request confirmation, etc.

Appointment Reminders: These alerts ensure you never miss out on your appointments. Both doctors and patients will be receiving an email before a scheduled session that provides the date, timing, and login details for the meeting.

HD Quality Video Chat: What is better than being able to consult the physicians regarding your symptoms or ailments via a video chat? The cutting-edge HD-quality video chat functionality enables you to see everything and interact in crisp detail.

Video Session Recording: This is yet another useful feature of a telemedicine solution’s ability to record video sessions. Once the session is over, a 48-hour time window is given to download the video to your system. Physicians can use this video for future references as they review a patient’s progress over time.

Multi-user chat: Numerous telemedicine platforms have this chat-functionality integrated, which allows providers to talk to patients or other physicians in real-time.

Patient information: With a simple click, a patient’s info can be easily exported in PDF format. Does this comprise of patients’ personal contact information, treatment notes, history of appointments, and emergency contacts? This is helpful to provide a history of visits & patient info to the other healthcare providers.

Treatment Notes: The health providers (admin) can add progress notes, treatment, and evaluation for each session. The server securely stores these notes in an encrypted database, and thus it guarantees patient-doctor confidentiality & safety.

Direct EHR integration: With the recent prominence of electronic health records (EHRs), it is vital that patient encounters are documented and stored digitally. The same goes for Telemedicine, where a number of telemedicine platforms enable users to document patient encounters, record audio/visual notes, and then attach them to patient’s health records.

Pharmacy Databases: It is easier to access the Pharmacy Database from the telemedicine mobile app, thus making the workflow a lot easier and efficient.

Document Sharing: The solution allows the patients as well as the physicians to share documents easily through the mobile app, thus enabling efficient and timely care.

Access Medicine Data: Medical professionals can access medicine data easily via the system to keep themselves updated regarding the newly-introduced medicines and the medicines that have been prescribed by them to certain patients.

Reporting & Analytics: Several telemedicine platforms consist of some form of reporting or analytics feature, though what data is included depends on the platform and what it is being used for.

For instance, a real-time Telemedicine mobile app may include reporting features that can track how many remote visits a provider has made, how many different patients she has seen, the common reasons for visits, and how many patients were and how much were they satisfied with the visit.

Store-and-forward Technology: This feature enables physicians and patients to share medical data, images & patient’s history in a safe & secure manner. They are mainly prominent in the arena of teleradiology, where patient MRI scans, x-rays, and more are sent to a specialist for remote diagnosis. This feature requires robust archiving & compressing functionality as it deals with comprehensive medical images that need to be shared with others without any drop in image resolution.

Prescription and medication Tracker: This feature allows the doctor to track the prescriptions and medication offered to certain patients.

Multiple Payment Mode: Constant payments need to be received online in lieu of the services offered to patients, such as appointment fees, etc. Thus, multiple payment modes, like Credit/Debit Card, PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree, are offered to the patients to make payment processing easier.

CMS for Health Articles: CMS integration with Telemedicine solutions is quite crucial in order to maintain health articles efficiently.

Push Notification: Alerts can be sent easily to doctors as well as patients in case of any updates, such as new appointment requests, appointment confirmations, medicine planners, and a lot more.

Related Post: e-Prescription Software and Mobile App Development- Cost & Features

Which Practices Find Telemedicine Mobile App Beneficial?

This solution proves helpful for many healthcare streams ranging from:

Cancer care: Often cancer involves a long & intense period of treatment for patients where they need to make visits to numerous healthcare providers, all during receiving treatment, such as chemotherapy, which makes them tired & sick. Thus, when patients are enabled to meet several oncology providers from home using Telemedicine solutions, it reduces the burden not just on patients but also on caregivers.

Family practices: With the use of Telemedicine solutions, family healthcare can be provided in a lot more flexible manner. The system can be used by physicians to check on how patients are doing and to review test results and symptoms before prescribing medication.

Sleep Medicine: The sleep conditions can be easily diagnosed and treated from home via sleep tests & therapies, however, a consultation with a sleep specialist is still needed. This is why telemedicine is quite popular among sleep specialists who consult with patients at home.

Diabetes Care & Management: Chronic ailments such as diabetes need ongoing patient interaction. With Telemedicine solutions being an effective and efficient way to engage with diabetic patients, they report their progress from the comfort of their homes.

Medication Management: Medication compliance has a great focus in healthcare and with telemedicine solutions, the healthcare providers & staff can stay in touch with patients to assure they are compliant with a prescribed medication regimen. This improves patient-health results and reduces readmissions.

Prenatal Care: Most of prenatal care consists of routine check-ups & patient education, thus Telemedicine solution allows the moms to continuously receive care without any additional time & cost burdens of traveling to a clinic for each visit.

Mental & Behavioural Heath: m-Health, e-therapy, telepsychology, and tele-mental health is in all likelihood the largest segment of telemedicine users in healthcare, after all, it is just so flexible as well as it can be utilized successfully for a variety of client populations in mental & behavioral health, such as Emotional support, Consultation & Supervision, In-home behavioral interventions, Medication Management, Psychological Assessment and Therapy for individual, couples, or groups.

Psychiatry: Video consultation and medications through telemedicine mobile apps

Dermatology: Sending images of skin such as rashes, scars, or nevii for rapid consultation.

Cardiology: App can monitor patients with cardiac diseases via wearable devices. The app can also examine using electronic stethoscopes and tele-ECG.

Ophthalmology: Macro picture of an eye using a smartphone camera OR attached optical device

Orthopedics: X-ray image sharing, monitoring, and consulting with orthopedics.

Nursing: Nursing services for noncritical cases and minor injuries, like bruises and mild burns. Provide Instructions for wound treatment and medication.

Physical Therapy: Advising patients on the proper workouts, diets, and regimens for treating sports injuries and other injuries.

Emergency Treatment: Telemedicine apps can provide care instructions and consultation for emergency support.

These are some of the important use cases where one needs assistance with telemedicine mobile applications. If you are looking forward to developing a telemedicine mobile that can help you monetize on the current healthcare scenario, then you are surely in the right place.

Read Also: Pharmacy Management Software Development- Features & Functionalities

Security and Compliance Requirements

• Certified with EPCS (Electronic Prescription for Controlled Substance)
• Electronically protected health information (ePHI). 
• Integrated with EPA (Electronic Prior Authorization)
• In compliance with HIPAA 
• HITECH Act meaningful use stage 1 & 2
• Health and Human Services (HHS) guidelines
• Certification with EPSC (Electronic Prescription for Controlled Substance)
• FDA Policy for mobile medical applications.
• Health Level 7: HL7 Standards

The U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 regulate security provisions and data privacy for electronically protected health information (ePHI). If we talk about this in simpler words, this is an act that is enforced so that data that is relevant to respective patients’ can be stored, shared, and accessed safely and securely by limited parties.

HIPAA has established itself as the most popular compliance standard and has set strong security zones for telemedicine app developers who need to abide by them. Along with this, the compliance framework is designed to regulate other industries and help in a careful assessment of the details.

Some other relevant standards to stick to are SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR.

The data shared and discussed with other members is always encrypted and transferred maintaining high security. True end-to-end encryption for single messages is never a good idea. 

Along with data security, admin levels need to be taken care of. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Multi-Factor Authentication, Password Rotation, etc. are some common practices to follow.

Factors to consider while developing telemedicine mobile app

As you initiate your search for the right Telemedicine System Development company, you need to abide by certain parameters which will prove to be pivotal for your search:

• Easy-to-use, Feature-Rich, Application
• Simple Yet Attractive Designs and Artworks 
• Mobile-ready strategy (suits both Android & iOS apps, PWA)
• Functions efficiently and smoothly on all devices (mobile, tablets, & desktops)
• EHR EMR system integrated
• Certified with EPCS, HIPAA & HL7

Required Techstack To develop Telemedicine Mobile App

• Mobile App Platforms: Android, iOS
• Drug Data: openFDA Drug API | GoodRx
• EHR and EMR: Allscripts API, DrChrono API
• Prescription Management: MDLive
• Treatment Type and Health Insurance: Eviti
• Front-end Development: Angular, Java, CSS, HTML, React
• Back-end Development: Laravel, Node.js
• Push Notifications, SMS: Batch, Twillo, Push.io
• Database: MongoDB, Cassandra, and Postgres
• Cloud Environment: Amazon Cloud Services are Well Tested
• Location Tracking: MapKit for iOS, and Google Maps Android
• Real-time Analytics: Hadoop, Spark, Apache Flink,
• Payment Processing: PayPal API, Braintree SDK, eWallets

How do determine the cost to develop a telemedicine mobile app?

When talking about telemedicine mobile app development, it is largely influenced by the concept, functionality, development approach, and the app development team that you have hired. Our IT consulting firm has delivered solutions in the past with around $40k for the basic application and $150k for the feature-rich and custom functionality-loaded telemedicine applications for one platform. 

The cost of the development of telemedicine apps can even rise above $300k per platform if you choose to work on a very complicated and intricate solution. The cost to develop a Telemedicine System depends on a number of factors, after all the system is integrated with myriad features and a lot of integrations. Here are the factors that mainly affect the cost of Telemedicine app development are:

Factors that Decide cost of Telemedicine App Development Cost

• Size of the Telemedicine app development team
• Development Timeline is inversely proportional to Development Size
• Development Partner Geo-Location- The final cost for creating a telemedicine app is significantly influenced by the geographical location of the chosen development partner. In the United States, a developer’s hourly rate is from $150 to $250, whereas in Eastern Europe it is between $12 and 180 dollars, and between $40 and 80 dollars in Asian nations.
• Third-Party API Integrations (Third-party Resources, like Database, API, Authorization)
• Certifications & Compliances

These are the factors that are crucial to calculating the cost of telemedicine apps & Mobile app development. As soon as you succeed in finding the right medical app development company, you can determine the cost of developing this system on the basis of these features. However, a telemedicine mobile app in an MPA form will fall around $25000 to $45000 dollars for a single platform.

Wrapping It Up!

Telemedicine app development has proven to be greatly effective in overcoming barriers to health services that occurred due to the distance between patients and providers, poor access to reliable transportation, lack of available providers, and a fragment of care owing to gaps in time between appointments...

When it comes to talking about telemedicine app development, we can help you enter the market by developing highly rewarding telemedicine mobile apps. With our expertise and experience in the field, we offer Telemedicine mobile apps that adhere to HIPAA compliance, thus privacy infringement becomes a strict NO. We are always available to interact with you round the clock and help you establish an efficient telemedicine mobile app platform.

So, if you are looking for any assistance, catch up with us for some coffee!