Air Doctor: Making Medical Care Accessible for Travelers
While traveling, what can be one of the worst things you might face? To me, it'll be getting sick in a land surrounded by foreign people where I might not be able to find a doctor whom I'll be able to explain what my problem is whether it's because of language barrier or something else. Which may lead to cancelling the whole trip, if not then I'll have to wait till I come back to the country or even worse can be getting the wrong treatment! Sounds horrible, doesn't it!
Here comes Air Doctor, a global medical network for travelers to find local doctors and schedule appointments while abroad.
Intro:
Founded Date: June 01, 2016
Founders: Efrat Sagi Ofir, Jenny Cohen Derfler, Yam Derfler, Yegor Kurbachev
Location: Beit Nekofa, Yerushalayim, Israel
When Yam Derfler went off to travel the world, he ended up getting the wrong treatment in a hospital in Mexico as he fell sick and couldn't find a proper doctor. Coming back home, he did research and found out that 8% of travelers face similar experiences abroad, unfamiliar with the local language and medical system. His research revealed that doctor-locating apps in specific countries geared to residents, but nothing for tourists. That's when Air Doctor was born to connect travelers to local doctors worldwide!
In July 2018, they launched both iOS and Android apps and became popular very quickly as anyone can find doctors filtering by language, doctors who make house (or hotel) calls, and see who has appointments available soonest including the fees.
They make sure verifying doctors' licenses by vetting through people on the ground, getting recommendations both from word of mouth, other doctors and local governments before onboarding.
They're partnering up with insurance companies to allow people to connect with insurance providers so they won’t have to pay out of pocket for the healthcare services as well as to help insurance companies to reduce claim costs.
They're also partnering up with OTAs and hospitality companies like TravelPerk, Selina etc to provide a solution of medical assistance and prescription 24/7 to their customers.
In December 2019, they've launched the telemedicine service after finding out that 30% of the visitors find a video call sufficient which also reduces the cost.
Here's how the Air Doctor works.
Air Doctor has raised a total of $30.9M in funding over 4 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on May 31, 2022 from a Series B round. Among all, Kamet, Phoenix Insurance Company and Lightspeed Venture led the rounds so far.
Since its launch, the company has also picked up several awards, including first prize at the Global InsurTech Roadshow 2019 pitch competition in Frankfurt, and was named as one of MassChallenge’s top 10 start-ups of 2018. Now they've a global network of over 20,000 medical professionals across 2,000 cities in 74 countries.
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Thanks and Regards,
Humayra Adrita