Discovery
Over a dedicated span of three months, our creative team embarked on a journey to reimagine medical tourism from the ground up. Our primary focus was to make sure the product was easy to use and that a potential patient could find ample information about the doctor they were seeking, their credentials and certifications, and more information about the US board that certifies all doctors on the platform.
The journey began with a deep dive into competitors and user research. We contacted a few people in our network that had already gotten medical procedures done abroad and asked them about their reasons for traveling abroad, their experience, and what they wish they had prepared for or done differently.
The reason people went abroad, unsurprisingly, was they knew they could get cheaper medical services outside of the US. Users we talked to reported being able to get flights, the procedure, lodging, and meals for less than just the cost of the US procedure, often by a significant margin.
However, there was another lurking factor in these people's willingness to travel abroad, either they lived in the country they traveled to before or had relatives there. This wasn't exactly a confidence inspiring answer for us, since our target market was the US population who may or may not have traveled outside the US before, but we were confident that more people in the US were cost driven and would still be willing to explore medical procedures.
Flows + Solution
We knew that customer experience was paramount, and our app had to provide an end-to-end booking experience for the client. Our end-to-end booking experience allowed the client to book their procedure, airfare, lodging, and car rental all in our application through integrations. We made this decision to cut down on complexity for our target audience and remove all the guesswork and fears of international travel complications.
For example, our target audience is cost-focused US individuals who don't necessarily have experience traveling or booking flights, hotels, and cars outside the country. They're afraid of language barriers and need to be reassured of the trip and area's safety. By providing this experience all in the app (and making sure they get the best rates and locations for their surgery), we dramatically improve the experience for our target audience and increase conversion rates.
One specific problem we found during user interviews with doctors that we addressed in our flow was flights. After some (but not all) procedures, the patient should not fly for anywhere from 48 hours to a week depending on the surgery. We found through our interviews with doctors that patients were often surprised by this and had to do a lot of last minute rearranging of flights. By controlling the flight booking experience in our application and knowing the guidelines behind each surgery, we were able to choose the correct dates for a user's flights, ensuring the user has a smooth experience and doesn't have to rearrange their flight schedule last minute.
To summarize, our user experience is: users go through a procedure of meeting with our representative, scheduling with their doctor, having a real time digital call with the doctor, confirming their appointment details and procedure, booking their flight, booking a hotel, booking a travel service, and even requesting suggestions for fun activities in one flow.
This entire process is manually overseen and assisted by customer support agents. They make sure that people don't accidentally book flights that don't line up with their procedure date and that enough recovery time is allotted before their return flight (certain procedures have up to a week of recovery before the patient can fly again). They also make sure that people actually understand and are interested in the service we're offering. We found that when we added an initial call when someone tries to book with a doctor, our specialists were able to point people in the right direction for the service they needed, rule out people who didn't completely understand what they were signing up for, and even add confidence to the person that we're a real platform and not just a random online service.
To support this complex patient journey, we developed a custom backend support system that would allow support agents to have visibility and control over a patient's trip. It is also a highly flexible platform, allowing for a wide range of unique accommodations, while still having as much automation as possible for things like notifications and changing a patient's trip status after booking flights, and more. For example, the system is even complex enough to allow for someone to bring their partner and book an extra plane ticket and adjust hotel options if needed.
Results
Aleriom has product has launched and already had 100+ users take trips through our application. We also identified an interesting an unexpected niche: B2B corporate packages for employees that allows cost savings for an employer. We didn't expect that target market to be so interested, but are pleasantly surprised! To support that specific type of customer, we've added corporation account features that allow them to set a total spend and monitor the quantity of trips they've sponsored.
Our product is now also in talks for a buyout by a major medical tourism player.
