{"id":2158,"date":"2020-07-29T19:50:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T11:50:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/?p=2158"},"modified":"2020-07-30T07:40:38","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T23:40:38","slug":"july-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/july-update\/","title":{"rendered":"SeriousMD &#8211; July 2020 Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"workspace-split mod-vertical mod-root\">\n<div class=\"workspace-leaf mod-active\">\n<div class=\"workspace-leaf-content\" data-type=\"markdown\" data-mode=\"preview\">\n<div class=\"view-content\">\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-view is-readable-line-width\">\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>This was originally a newsletter but doubled down into a development log, so it might as well be posted here on the blog.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>We&#8217;d like to keep you in the loop of what we\u2019ve been working on and what releases to expect in the coming weeks, so if you&#8217;re interested, read on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">1. Accept Payments Ahead of the Consult<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Now that online bookings are stable and more patients are aware of how online scheduling works, we now want to help you deter no shows and cancellations, so we\u2019ll be releasing a \u201c<strong>paywall<\/strong>\u201d feature in the coming week to allow you to accept payments ahead of time\u00a0<strong>or<\/strong>\u00a0be able to charge a booking fee.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>This should drastically lower the no-shows, persistent bookers and even fake bookings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p><strong>I\u2019d like to share with you some of the details and ideas as we\u2019re building this feature out.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>As with any major feature, it needs time to be ironed out and feedback over time will help perfect it. Everything is a work in progress until it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Once the Paywall is Enabled<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The patient\u00a0<strong>must<\/strong>\u00a0finish the payment first before the booking request shows up on your Booking Requests area.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Charging: Full PF or just Booking Fee<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<ul>\n<li>Doctors can charge the entire PF or just a booking fee<\/li>\n<li>You will have a toggle to select if it\u2019s a full PF fee or booking fee<\/li>\n<li>The clinic\/staff\/doctor has to accept within 20 hours after the patient has settled the bill or booking fee. If not, it will be refunded automatically to the patient.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Things We\u2019re Still Considering<\/span><\/h3>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong style=\"font-size: 16px;\">A. Appointment Request Must Be Accepted within 20 Hours or Fee is Refunded<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We\u2019re still thinking if this should be adjusted to\u00a0<strong>12 hours<\/strong>\u00a0to increase the urgency to make it a better experience to the patient.\u00a0<strong>What do you think?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>B. Basic Plan vs Pro Subscribers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Subscribers will be able to turn the paywall off while those on the Basic plan will have the paywall enabled and cannot be disabled. We \u201cmight\u201d start with both plans being able to enable\/disable it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>C. Paywall Setup<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">If paywall is enabled and the fee is left empty, default booking fee will be set to 50 Pesos. This is for those that don\u2019t set it up and those that haven\u2019t used their SeriousMD accounts.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The service fee rate is still the same with our current billing at 5%+50 but we are contemplating to increase rates to 10%+. As I <a href=\"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/billing-patients\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mentioned before when we released the Billing module<\/a> back in late March, we were just trying to cover the transaction costs to be able to release it as fast as possible to help out with the situation and we will think about things after ECQ.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We didn\u2019t really expect quarantine to last this long back in March.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We\u2019re basically covering everything the whole time, we might as well close down if this continues. For those new to SeriousMD, we have not increased subscription pricing the past 2 years, so there\u2019s no costs for calls, notification costs and other costs involved when we came up with the Pro plan pricing way back then.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Plus, the banks are charging for deposits for the payouts and our email + SMS notification costs are <strong>C-R-A-Z-Y right now<\/strong> and the per transaction fees are not going down.\u00a0\u200d&#x1f613;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>D. Patient Inquiry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">As there will be more new patients that will be able to discover you, we are thinking of enabling a way for them to inquire first.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s it for the paywall. Once we release the paywall feature, you\u2019ll start to put together what the next major update will be about. You\u2019ll definitely notice it. I\u2019ll keep it a secret for now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">2. Over the Counter Payments<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Our previous <strong>OTC<\/strong> (Over the Counter) payment experiment was a failure because our partner banks and organizations couldn\u2019t handle instant\/real-time updates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>It took freakin\u2019 days, some even weeks, for them to verify a payment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>I\u2019m excited to say that we will be opening it up OTC again and giving it another try in the coming weeks, aiming for\u00a0<strong>real-time<\/strong>\u00a0updates for OTC payments. Wish us luck.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">3. The \u201cDocument Request\u201d Update<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Yes, we\u2019ve heard your requests to let your patients be able to send you files ahead of a consult.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>We only limited that feature to protect you all from abusive patients and those asking for free consults. At the end of the day, it\u2019s us that will be blamed, not the patient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The wait will be <strong>worth it<\/strong> though as you\u2019ll have a plethora of options that you can use at your disposal. I should be able to share more info with you in the next update. This is another major update the other team is working on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">4. SeriousMD iOS App V2<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>A lot of you have been wondering how the iOS V2 update is going.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The iOS team has been working hard to build, tweak, test, test and test.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Unlike your regular software, building an iOS app from scratch is really not the same. Each page and each interaction is unique. Each part is drawn manually etc. all the while it should fit in the different sizes while considering offline data integrity. So it is taking time to get it to \u201crelease quality\u201d because it\u2019s critical that all bases are covered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The previous week, we\u2019ve entered the 85% zone. I\u2019ve been helping the iOS team test it and it\u2019s pretty much there. This week, we\u2019re entering the the optimization stage, basically, making it a faster and smoother experience, especially for those with huge patient lists above 10,000 or patients with large numbers of notes and images.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p><strong>Here\u2019s a preview:<\/strong> (It\u2019s not a myth. It\u2019s just hard, that\u2019s why almost nobody really does offline-online real-time syncing nowadays.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SeriousMD iOS V2 Preview\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p0F3gDOCwM4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Once we release this and once we deem it stable, we can start churning out the new features the web app has been releasing the past months. It\u2019s catch up time from there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The important part is just to get this out and make sure data are saving &amp; syncing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">5. Now Serving Directory Update V2<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The design team just released a whole new design for the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/nowserving.ph\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NowServing.ph website<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Yes, it\u2019s still in\u00a0<strong>beta,<\/strong>\u00a0so the design will continue to be tweaked and search results will still fluctuate as the team further improves and tests results <em>(yes we\u2019re also doing user testing with real live patients across the country. It&#8217;s based on real data and not our assumptions.)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>This new site also detects your location and suggests doctors based on the location detected <strong>OR<\/strong> filters selected by the patient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Much like with Google, the results we want to show the patient <strong>should be the most relevant to the person searching<\/strong> so it cannot be alphabetically organized.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>There is an algorithm to it that automatically computes various details you have in your profile and ranks your profile accordingly when a search is done by the patient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>For those that want to be found, be sure to update your profile details, add a description, add a picture, add your specialties, check the proper specialty boxes, edit your clinic details to properly tag hospitals and locations, add your PRC ID etc. &#8211; <strong>In short, just update your profile completely<\/strong>. We cannot really do that for you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<blockquote><p><em>Are there other ranking factors aside from those mentioned above? <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Yes<\/strong>, a lot more, but I can\u2019t divulge the details of the algorithm. <a href=\"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/doctor\/app\/doctorprofile\/personal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">All I can say is update your profile<\/a>, your <a href=\"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/doctor\/app\/clinics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clinics<\/a> and continue using SeriousMD.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>We should be ready to launch and promote it sometime in the next month.<\/p>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Your Specialty Is Missing?<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p><strong>All specialties are already there and searchable<\/strong> but it might not yet be showing in the images as the design team will still have to make a design for each one. (The ones with the images per specialty)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h3><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Badges on Your Profile Page<\/span><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>Oh, and remember last time that we mentioned that we\u2019ll be putting badges on your new profile page design? We\u2019re just about ready to do that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>The first target would be to get your societies on board. We\u2019d like to work with your society to get everybody legitimately verified.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>If your society would like to work with us on this, just let me know. It would help bring more trust to your profile while promoting the society as well. <strong>It\u2019s a win-win<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"view-content\">\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-view is-readable-line-width\">\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<h2><span style=\"color: #800080;\">6. Other Recent Updates<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>We\u2019ve released a ton of new things the past months and we opted to not send separate emails for those releases and just put them in the Whats New area of SeriousMD.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<p>If you haven\u2019t been able to check the What\u2019s New area, here\u2019s a summary for some of the updates.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"markdown-preview-section\">\n<ul>\n<li>Design tweaks to the interface, making it easier to send prescriptions, starting a call, see the appointment time etc.<\/li>\n<li>Also improved SeriousMD mobile views on various tablet sizes<\/li>\n<li>Message delivery status can now be seen to see if a message was successfully sent.<\/li>\n<li>A\u00a0<strong>Share Call Link<\/strong>\u00a0button was implemented in cases that the patient needs to use the web browser instead of the phone.<\/li>\n<li>Sharing your screen is now possible during a Virtual Consult<\/li>\n<li>Improved duplicate patient detection for online bookings<\/li>\n<li>You\u2019re now able to upload multiple images at one time<\/li>\n<li>You have\u00a0<strong>QR Poster<\/strong>\u00a0designs you can print out and put on the door of your clinic.<\/li>\n<li>The Now Serving app has a tablet mode now, it also has a torch option to use the flash of the phone to better light (For example: You want to see the throat better.) Also shows the patient\u2019s signal strength<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Document Release&#8221; Update<\/strong>\u00a0&gt; Send documents Automatically after a bill is settled<\/li>\n<li><strong>Medicine Delivery<\/strong>\u00a0is <a href=\"https:\/\/app.getbeamer.com\/seriousmd\/en\/now-serving-app-update-medicine-delivery\">now available<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0(We\u2019re still working on getting other pharmacies on board. Referrals to contacts with higher clout in those companies are welcome. The end goal is to be able to work with them and eventually, get the pharmacies to be on board to verify every single prescription, this in turn protects you and your patients. This is the first step towards that.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"workspace-split mod-horizontal mod-right-split\">\n<p class=\"workspace-tabs\">And&#8230;. that&#8217;s it&#8230; for now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>We have so much more in the works to tell you about. We can only hope that you&#8217;ll continue to support us and share <a href=\"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/doctor\/app\/invite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SeriousMD with your friends<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Have a great week everyone!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This was originally a newsletter but doubled down into a development log, so it might as well be posted here on the blog. We&#8217;d like to keep you in the loop of what we\u2019ve been working on and what releases to expect in the coming weeks, so if you&#8217;re interested, read on. 1. Accept Payments [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2206,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions\/2206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seriousmd.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}