00:00You've been the co-founder of this company since 2007. Talk to us about the latest developments,
00:05how you expect this to generate new growth, and specifically, what's actually changing now than
00:11what previously patients could do? Yeah, good to be here. So many of your viewers probably
00:17know ZocTalk as a destination site where you go, you find a doctor that accepts your insurance,
00:22you book your appointment. What we have done over the last 20 years is to build the infrastructure
00:28that actually enables it. So the integrations with the doctor's scheduling systems and
00:33electronic health records, the mapping of insurances. And what's new now is that we
00:38make this available to third parties. So anyone who has a patient audience and they want to make sure
00:44that patients have an easy time to get access to care can use ZocTalk's care access network and the
00:50health access infrastructure we provide and help patients day one. Well, give me a sense, though,
00:57just about how this affects the business. If we're going through a third party,
01:01where does ZocDoc, in terms of its visibility, sit in that whole process? Are you concerned
01:06that this actually kind of cannibalizes your brand? I think actually most industries have an
01:12infrastructure player. You know, if you think about e-commerce, Shopify is helping a lot of merchants
01:17there. If you think about payments, Stripe is playing a similar role. And so we very much are
01:24in the business of helping everyone to open the front door to care. The journey doesn't have to
01:29start on ZocDoc, but we want to make sure that every single, you know, front door in which a
01:34patient knocks nationwide opens. Well, yeah, that's a good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. Give
01:38me a sense, though, that as you push deeper into this space here, what is sort of the broader access
01:45that you get in terms of people, whether they're using your platform directly through ZocDoc or using
01:49the third parties? Is this an expanded universe of potential patients, or is this just the same
01:57universe of folks you already had? Oh, it's absolutely an expanded universe of patients.
02:02Obviously, ZocDoc.com isn't going away. We continue to offer a best-of-class experience for patients to
02:09get access to care. But we have a broad set of partners, right? We have the Veterans Administration
02:14Helping Veterans, since it's not a constituency that we have previously served. We're many times
02:19integrated into the health insurance directories. Blue Shield of California is an example for that.
02:26Now, we work with AI platforms like Google Gemini or Amazon Health AI, as you mentioned. And so we
02:32partner with Yelp and Healthgrade, so review sites. So it's a very broad set of partners that each are
02:40fulfilling a certain need for patients. And we make sure that all of them can seamlessly offer
02:47sort of scheduling with the providers connected to the care access network.
02:52Dr. Karaz, I was looking at this AMN healthcare survey, and it was talking about how the average
02:56time to get an appointment is around 31 days. Will some of these new developments that you're doing
03:01shorten that time period?
03:02So already today on ZocDoc, we can get a patient in typically between 24 and 72 hours. And so we're
03:11already talking about essentially a factor of 10 better than picking up the phone and dialing for
03:16doctors. What's unique about us is that we're very much open. And we say, well, we've created this
03:21fantastic capability that improves the patient experience by an order of magnitude. But we are
03:28opening this up to other third parties. We're not trying to build a walled garden and keep that
03:34only for us. You know, it's all in the service of the patient to make sure the experience is great
03:38wherever they start.
03:39I am curious just about when we talk about expansion of access, when we talk about these digital tools,
03:45to a certain extent, these are tools that more affluent people or at least people of a certain means
03:50have greater access to. When we talk about expanding our healthcare universe and access to coverage,
03:56how do you address issues with the digital divide and people that maybe don't have the same access
04:01that you or I would have to these digital tools?
04:03So we're proud that we serve patients with all insurances. You know, we say, you know, obviously,
04:10patients like you and me, but we serve patients that are, you know, covered by plants that have much
04:18harder access restrictions. And in fact, you know, we can help these patients to get access on the
04:23same terms that you do. You can still go there, you put in your insurance, and it shows you which
04:29doctors are in network accepting new patients. And instead of calling around, being on hold for
04:35many, many hours, sometimes you can just book an appointment in a minute or two, like everyone else.
04:41So in some ways, it's an access equalizer. And at the same time, you know, like it makes sure that
04:47because it's now so easy to get access, it keeps people out of the emergency room, which is
04:53frequently, you know, a worse experience, but always much more expensive than seeing a doctor,
04:58you know, in the office. So it's really a win-win-win system that is just increasing the efficiency in
05:05healthcare.
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