Free Medical Consultation Straight From Home with Indonesia’s TipsDokter

Feeling like you really need help but are too lazy to go to a hospital for a check-up? Or maybe you’re too busy to go? Carrying the tagline “Real questions, real answers, real doctors,” Indonesian startup TipsDokter tries to help people get answers on health-related questions regarding cancer, vaccines, autism, allergies, skin diseases, and lots more.

There is also a feature inside TipsDokter called ‘health A-Z’ with more than 100 health articles. Each article contains information on things like symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment care of your suspected health problems. TipsDokter claims to have the biggest database in the medical and health industries. Yudhi Mandey, the CEO of TipsDokter, explains:

We have directories that cover hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, doctors, and clinics in Indonesia. Also for most major hospitals, we completed the data with their features, facilities, and doctors’ schedules. Also, we are adding another feature a few weeks from now: the complete product info on prescription drugs, OTC (over-the-counter) drugs, vitamins, supplements, and beauty care products. To get this feature done, we affiliated with our partner ApotikAntar.

Doctors gonna help out

Since it serves as a platform for free consultation, doctors play an important role for this website. It has to guarantee that the doctors are eligible and trustworthy. I asked Yudhi about TipsDokter’s line-up:

At the moment we have nine in-house doctors. All dedicate their time to answer any medical and health related question posted by users from 9am to 6pm. All our in-house doctors have an average of at least 15 to 20 years’ experience as general practitioners. We also have contributor doctors who can help us answer questions; the more they answer questions, the more they promote themselves on our site. Users can give a recommendation to doctors if they are happy with the answer.

So what do these busy doctors get in return? Yudhi mentions three benefits. First, all the contributing doctors will have their name on the doctors directory. Second, users can see the doctor in person by using the ‘book an appointment’ feature on the site whereby they arrange a schedule and the doctor will receive a message about the appointment. Third, doctors can make a personal promotion by including their practice’s location(s). TipsDokter is still open for more doctors to join the team.

13,000 active users so far

Launched in May 2012, TipsDokter has 13,000 active users to date and each user needs to sign up in order to ask health and medical related questions. Yudhi says he pays close attention to user welfare “because health and medical answers can be a serious thing if mishandled.”

Soon the startup will launch smartphone apps which can locate the nearest hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, and private practices. They’ll also serve as a platform for prescription drugs, OTC, vitamins, supplements and beauty care products to be home delivered.

There are not many players with the same range as TipsDokter, so Yudhi is keen for the site to become the most well-known. Recently, TipsDokter started contributing health-related articles to one of the biggest news groups in Indonesia, Kompas.com, during Ramadan season, which should provide a big boost in visibility.