SA’s Recomed reports record number of medical bookings following Covid-19 onset

Medical bookings platform Recomed last week saw its highest volume week on record, the startup’s CEO and founder Sheraan Amod revealed yesterday.

The platform, which was founded by Amod (pictured above) in 2013, facilitates bookings with doctors. It is free for patients to use, with the startup billing doctors a fee equivalent to 5% of their consultation fee to use the service.

“Recomed processed 3290 appointments on Monday 16 March, a record day for the platform. The prior record was hit a week earlier on Monday 9 March. We expect the 23rd (March) to be higher,” he told Ventureburn in an email yesterday.

Amod said bookings had on average increased by 30% in last two weeks over the average for 2019, with new users up 10% in this time period over last year’s average.

Medical bookings platform Recomed had seen a 30% increase in doctors appointments made via its platform with the onset of Covid-19

The average appointment confirmation rate by doctors dropped from an average of 88% to 77% last week, meaning that there was also an increase in declined and cancelled appointments.

“At this stage we believe the reasons for the rapid swings in our metrics can be attributed to the response to the Covid-19 pandemic the public and medical practitioners using Recomed,” he said.

Ventureburn asked Amod whether the platform is looking at entering other markets, given the current high demand in South Africa.

He said the platform is not limited by healthcare legislation in other countries and will be expanding in 2020, but added that the startup is “not ready to make an announcement yet”.

Amod also said he will also shortly announce new investment that the startup has raised.

Featured image: Recomed CEO and founder Sheraan Amod (Facebook)

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