Vietnam Docosan healthcare booking app to expand

Based in Ho Chi Minh City, Docosan helps patients avoid long waits by letting them search and book doctors through its app.

It has recently received US$1 million in seed funding and plans to expand into other countries.

The investment was led by AppWorks, Taiwan-based early-stage investor with participation from David Ma and Huat Ventures.

Founded in 2020, the app has been used by 50,000 patients for bookings and has 300 individual healthcare providers, from small family paediatric clinics to neurosurgeons at large private hospitals. Providers are vetted before being added to the platform.

Advance doctor bookings are not how healthcare works in Vietnam. People who use private healthcare providers have to choose between 30,000 private hospitals and clinics with huge variations in price and quality.  Word of mouth recommendations from family and friends are frequently used to choose a healthcare provider, and patients then show up at a hospital or clinic and wait in line, sometimes for hours.

The Docosan app allows consumers to filter providers by location and specialty, and see pricing information and verified customer reviews. It allows online payment. For healthcare providers on the app, Docosan provides software to manage bookings and ease wait times.

Docosan believes the app is a solution that works well anywhere with a large, fragmented private healthcare system and now plans to expand into other countries.