Zocdoc

Patients are using AI to make sense of health information. But getting information that feels useful is not the same thing as knowing exactly what it means for your care. When we interviewed Cornelius James, MD, from the University of Michigan Medical School for a recent Zocdoc story on AI and doctor-patient care, he framed it as the difference between information, knowledge, and wisdom: 💡 “With Google, you’re dealing with a lot of information. With AI, you’re dealing with knowledge. But in clinical practice, it’s wisdom — taking that knowledge and applying it in the messiness of real life — that matters.” That’s where the provider relationship matters, and maybe more than ever. AI can help patients start with better questions, but better care depends on knowing what to do with the answers. For more insights about how patients and providers both think about AI, read our latest resource; link in comments.

Extreme heat is changing the nature of real-time care. A recent STAT article highlights how soaring temperatures are shifting the front lines of healthcare. While ERs are bracing for overwhelming patient surges, primary care and community clinics are actively working to intercept patients earlier. By using advanced weather alerts and developing proactive "heat action plans," providers are trying to prevent heat-related emergencies and chronic disease exacerbations before they escalate. But this preventative approach relies on one critical factor: timely access. When climate-driven health risks spike, a patient's ability to quickly connect with an everyday provider is what ultimately keeps them out of an overcrowded hospital. It’s an important read on how practices are adapting to a new public health reality: https://ow.ly/v1jQ50ZmbG6 #Healthcare #PatientAccess #PrimaryCare #PublicHealth #HeatWave

It is easy to think Zocdoc is in the business of appointment bookings. But patients don't want bookings. They want to be seen by great doctors. And that is the business we are in. That is why we created Care, Unscripted, a new series featuring clinicians behind the bookings. It showcases doctors in the Zocdoc network like:  Psychiatrist Dr. Ahmed Al-Katib, MD, whose therapy dog helps put patients at ease.  Optometrist Dr. Sophia Visanji, who believes great glasses can change how you see yourself.  Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Erin Nance, MD, who starts every visit by listening before she treats. Dentist Dr. Franklyn Aguebor, who swaps dental anxiety for playlists and good vibes. It is a great reminder that behind every booking is a clinician who is there to listen, to care, to help, and to heal. Did you find someone through Zocdoc who deserves the spotlight? Tell us about them in the comments, and they may be our next feature.

Every practice gets complaints. One survey found that 73% of U.S. adults say the healthcare system has failed to meet their needs in at least one way. But whether patient grievances stay at the front desk or end up on Google often comes down to how you handle them. Consider this 5️⃣ step framework: listen, acknowledge, document, resolve, follow up. 1️⃣ Listen without interrupting, and hold eye contact if you’re face to face. Defensiveness is the natural reaction, and the patient needs to feel heard before anything else lands. 2️⃣ Acknowledge with empathy and treat the patient with courtesy. Repeat back what you heard to confirm you got it, and ask what they think should have happened and what they want now. 3️⃣ Document the complaint in writing that same day. Capture the patient’s name, the date, the category, what was said, who handled it, and what was promised. Store complaint records separately from the medical chart unless the issue is clinical and relevant to continuity of care. 4️⃣ Resolve by triaging to the right person (front-desk lead, office manager, or the clinician) and acting inside the timeframe you promised. For clinical concerns, the doctor should respond directly and as soon as possible. 5️⃣ Follow up with a call or written confirmation that the issue was addressed. Good practice means a prompt, open, and constructive response, with an apology where appropriate and a note on what you’ll change. Saying “I am sorry you are upset” is not an admission of liability and doesn’t require an expression of guilt or wrongdoing. For more advice about handling patient complaints, check out our latest resource: https://ow.ly/xXTN50ZmbBx

“No one will ever book a doctor’s appointment online,” said an esteemed judge at TechCrunch Disrupt when Zocdoc launched in 2007.  We had a different view. Our then-radical belief was that scheduling care should be as easy as booking a flight or making an online purchase. So we helped create the category. But first, we had to contend with healthcare's fragmented backend. There was no central infrastructure like Sabre for flights or Stripe for payments. So we spent years integrating with the hundreds of EHRs and practice management systems providers use to manage their calendars. Nearly 20 years later, online scheduling is what patients expect. That is why Zocdoc is signing CMS's Advanced Scheduling Pledge. Open, standardized FHIR APIs can accelerate the interoperable infrastructure healthcare needs to make seamless appointment booking available wherever patients are seeking care. If you are building a patient experience and want to add scheduling, we are ready to power it. Let's talk: https://lnkd.in/eEF53wGQ

Meet Zocdoc psychiatrist Ahmed Al-Katib, MD and his chief “dog-tor" Taz 🐾. She's an intuitive therapy dog who serves as the practice’s official vibe checker. Dr. Al-Katib knows that effective mental healthcare goes far beyond spoken words. It’s about creating a space where patients feel completely at ease. By blending clinical expertise with a focus on sleep, nutrition, and a calming environment (complete with four-legged support), he helps patients feel seen and supported from the moment they walk in. In our series Care, Unscripted, we’re spotlighting Zocdoc clinicians like Dr. Al-Katib who use unique, thoughtful approaches to build trust with their patients. Watch Dr. Al-Katib (and Taz) in action below.

As a platform dedicated to connecting patients with care, we’re always tracking how practice models are evolving, so this new research on private equity and primary care caught our attention 🫡 Private equity in healthcare can generate polarizing discussions, but a new Brown University study reveals that what is happening in primary care is much more nuanced. When researchers looked at #Medicare claims data for 225 primary care practices after private equity acquisition, they found a few surprising results. Here’s what the data actually showed: 🧑⚕️ Expanding the care team: Acquired practices hired 17% more physicians and 40% more advanced practice providers, like nurse practitioners and physician assistants. 🗓️ Increased #PatientAccess: Ultimately, these clinics saw 11% more patients and completed over 20% more preventive annual wellness visits. 💉 More #PreventiveCare: Individual patients received roughly 13% more services, driven largely by preventive care like lab tests and screenings that can catch issues like diabetes or high cholesterol early. Extra administrative support helped practices complete over 20% more Medicare annual wellness visits, which are crucial checkups that independent clinics may struggle with due to intense documentation requirements According to the researchers, the biggest takeaway of this study and other recent work is that private equity may not operate the same way in every sector of healthcare. "In many other settings, my colleagues and I have documented clear harms from private equity," study author Yashaswini Singh said in a news article. “This study posits a different question: Under what market conditions and incentives can private equity actually deliver on the promises it makes around expanding access and improving care — and how do we create more of those conditions?” See study link in comments.

The loudest moments in an exam room can sometimes be completely silent. That was an eye-opening insight shared in a recent reflection published in the Patient Experience Journal by student Avinav Biswas, who was shadowing a doctor during a routine primary care visit. A patient presented a troubling symptom, and after a careful exam, the doctor offered a familiar, well-intentioned reassurance: “It’s nothing to worry about. Let’s just keep an eye on it.” The doctor turned to the computer to finish their notes. Just before standing up to leave, the patient hesitated. They opened their mouth as if to ask a question, paused, and then — seeing the doctor's turned back — simply closed it. They offered a quiet "thank you" and walked out the door. In his reflection, Biswas makes it clear that he doesn't view this as a failure of empathy by the physician. Instead, he points to the realities of modern outpatient care: visits are tightly scheduled, and doctors must rely on reassurance as a necessary tool to gently bring appointments to a close within an efficiency-driven workflow. But once a doctor says "we'll keep an eye on it," patients often swallow their lingering questions because they don't want to challenge professional judgment or interrupt a busy schedule. The paper raises an interesting and important challenge for clinical care: Uncertainty is often invisible in standard quality metrics and patient satisfaction measures. A visit can meet all the documented quality benchmarks, yet still leave a patient with under-the-surface anxiety. We don't need to sacrifice efficiency to provide great care. But as Biswas notes, we should make more space for those unspoken worries. “Patient experience is defined not only by what is said or done, but also by what goes unspoken and unnoticed. Making space for uncertainty, even briefly, may be one of the quiet ways healthcare can become more humane without becoming less efficient, because when uncertainty remains invisible, it cannot be addressed.” Get the full essay link in the comments.

Going from “I have a symptom” to “I have an appointment” just got easier for patients using Amazon Health AI, an agentic AI health assistant designed to make health care easier for patients, including connecting them with care at One Medical. But not every patient is near a One Medical location. That’s where Zocdoc helps extend the path to care. Zocdoc supports Amazon Health AI by connecting patients with our network of over 200,000 providers across 200+ specialties and all 50 states, helping them find and book the right care wherever they are. This is the power of Zocdoc’s healthcare access infrastructure. With Zocdoc, Health AI meets patients at the moment they’re ready to act, wherever that moment happens.

“What’s the most futuristic thing you see coming that can be a reality in healthcare?” There are a lot of ways to answer that question. When our CEO Oliver Kharraz, MD answered this on a recent episode of Everyone Talks to Liz Claman, his answer started with a simple observation about how healthcare often works now: “Today, we treat things that are either very frequent, very cheap to treat, or after they have already happened.” His hope for what comes next: large clinical models that can help predict a person’s next clinical risk based on what’s happening in their life — similar to how a large language model predicts the next word in a sentence. Imagine clinical models that can detect when someone’s risk profile for a heart attack has meaningfully changed — based on age, health history, and recent events and symptoms — early enough for them to act before that risk becomes an emergency. Or as Oliver put it, early enough for them to “Go change the future.” That’s the kind of future we’re optimistic about: one where healthcare can help people reach care earlier, make more informed decisions, and prevent more problems before they become inevitable. Listen to Oliver’s full conversation here: https://ow.ly/OsOZ50ZhZJx