Is Starting An Online Clinic Really Expensive?
Ever since the pandemic began, the number of in-person medical consultations has dropped to extreme lows. One industry that took the boon was telemedicine. It continued to be one of the fastest-growing trends in the aftermath of Covid-19.
Telemedicine practices are skyrocketed by a record high of 38% than pre-pandemic.
In 2022, the implementation of telemedicine has stabilized in the range of 13% to 15% amongst all specialties. The number will only continue to grow because of its numerous benefits.
According to a study, some network issues are faced by patients online. Statistics favor telemedicine practices only as almost 30% of patients who attended a virtual medical appointment recommended and claimed they did not face any challenges and would prefer it again.
That’s a significant percentage to consider. Over this sequence, we’ll talk about how worthy it is to set up an online clinic in this fast-paced world.
Also, is it costly to set up a virtual clinic?
1. Is It Worthy Set Up An Online Clinic
Numbers say out for themselves! Here are some facts and figures to help you understand the worthiness of providing telemedicine support for your clinic.
- Since the pandemic began, physicians' visits have decreased by 60%.
- Sixty-three percent of respondents said they intend to use telehealth more than before the pandemic.
- More than three-quarters of patients (77%) said they enjoyed using telehealth.
- Only 39% of respondents said they wanted to see doctors.
- 58% of physicians still favor virtual care more than before the pandemic.
- As of April 2021, 84% of doctors provided telehealth, and 57% said they would like to continue.
2. How Much Does it Cost for Startups to Initiate an Online Clinic?
Before starting a telemedicine practice, the first and foremost step is to conduct market research and business analysis. Attention to detail is required to figure out the final solution.
Before we start any other procedure, providers do offer a discovery package.
1. Discovery Phase:
During this process, medical practitioners figure out whether the setup of an online clinic will actually be a perfect solution for their telehealth market or not.
They will create profiles for doctors and patients and research to determine their needs. Analyze market data to determine the size of the market and your product’s potential market share. Conduct an extensive competitor analysis to determine which healthcare institutions benefited from telemedicine solutions.
Further, determine the essential features of your future telemedicine software. Create a business plan to figure out how to monetize your telehealth application. Plan the budget, profit and loss statement, and revenue streams, and provide project implementation estimates.
2. The Initial Stage:
This stage is generally the proof of concept to create a basic solution. Once done with the research, service providers will curate a dashboard that caters to your need and implement the feedback from medical professionals.
The cost to set up one such platform requires time and may cost a fortune.
3. The Prototype:
Creating a prototype will give you a working model of your app/website.
A complete, ready-to-implement design with all required features. The architecture of the software and an application that people can test. It also offers documentation for the project.
A prototype allows you to evaluate your solution and determine what enhancements or changes are required.
What are the basic telemedicine app development costs?
It depends upon the various aspects, such as the application requirements, the total number of features and their complexities, resource compilation, and multiple elements.
You should also remember that you’ll need a solution that works on both the web and mobile and can create multiple databases.
Setting up a full-service telemed facility for your patients costs around $15,000 to $150,00. Though it depends on several facts, as mentioned above.
3. What are the Hidden Costs of Setting Up an Online Clinic?
Any service implementation comes with two types of costs. First is the direct price that comes with the software. While the second is the hidden costs that can turn out to be hefty and a burden on the pocket.
A. Integration of a Medical Device or Features
Setting up connectivity with portable devices or integrating additional medical features with APIS often incurs additional costs as part of the telemedicine startup costs. A digital telescope, examination camera, or ENT scope are standard devices that can be integrated.
B. License for Telehealth Platform
Your license is another telehealth cost. You can, however, purchase a telehealth platform license without paying a monthly fee. If you do, expect to pay around $1,500 per patient site for a software-based route that does not require a remote provider. Hardware-based video conferencing can cost up to $10,000 per patient location.
C. A platform for communication and video conferencing
You can build a portal with a single capability or multiple capabilities, including patient consultation hosting. You could even make the ability to aggregate and relay data from mobile medical devices.
D. Costs of Telemedicine Equipment
Cases, carts, and wall mounts are hardware packaging required by telemedicine software. You should concentrate on how well the equipment meets your needs, but remember those aesthetics are important.
You should look for modular packaging allowing easy configuration with multiple specialties.
E. Employee Education
Training your employees on the new software should take two to three weeks. You should demonstrate how the solution works, explain its integration capabilities, and test the entire process together during training. You should also think about trying patients.
F. Support for Telemedicine on Mobile Devices
Support costs for mobile health app development can be quite variable. You could pay as little as a couple of hundred dollars per month or as much as $10,000.
G. Attorney Fees
Contact your state’s medical board or an attorney for information on telemedicine compliance laws. You can also look at the website of the American Telemedicine Association to see what is and is not permitted in your state. Certain states allow virtual visits with patients from anywhere, while others require the patient to visit a medical facility.
H. Regulatory Compliance in Telemedicine
When creating a telemedicine application, you should pay close attention to regulatory compliance requirements. There is a global collection of formatting standards and guidelines designed to help healthcare providers with data transmission and sharing.
What’s the optimal solution?
The most optimal solution to set up an online clinic is to look for services that offer the exact features on an adequate budget.
KiviCare clinic and patient management system in WordPress is the ideal platform if you’re looking for an application to set up your online clinic.
A meticulously designed industry-driven tool that is initive and well-structured. It is a clinic and patient management system in WordPress tool that can simplify the process with a few mouse clicks.
KiviCare’s complete clinic management solution is the most simple and cost-effective self-hosted EHR solution for growing practices.
This plugin lets you set up your online clinic and manage the entire process, from booking to billing. You can manage appointments and be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Add interactions with patients. Inquire about the status of clinic session changes. Send emails with dashboard links.
Where other services charge you thousands of dollars, KiviCare EHR Management System for WordPress provides the same services for just a few hundred dollars.
Their premium package includes everything from top to bottom and costs around $299. Want to know what they offer? Check out their pricing now!
You can also take on the Additional Zoom and Google Meet telemed with a flutter mobile application by paying a few extra bucks.
Setting up an online clinic is all worth the struggle. Start today!