The popular website and application for booking medical appointments in France, Doctolib, has announced that it will soon add a feature to allow patients to be able to message their doctors using the platform.
The messaging system will become available on September 4th, according to Franceinfo.
Doctolib is the most widely used of the private online medical platforms in France, with over 140,000 healthcare professionals registered. It is in both website and app form, though it is not available in English. Nevertheless, patients can still request doctors with certain language skills.
READ MORE: How to make the most of French medical website Doctolib
How will the new messaging service work?
People using Doctolib will not be able to message every doctor on the platform. The new feature will only be available if the user is already a patient of that medical professional – meaning it cannot be used with doctors or healthcare providers with whom you have not yet had an appointment.
The messaging system is also “not intended to carry out medical consultations or visits, nor to obtain medical reports, nor to respond to emergency situations”, Doctolib wrote in its new terms of use.
Instead, a spokesperson for Doctolib told BFMTV that the goal of the new service is to facilitate routine medical procedures.
“Messaging will allow practitioners to renew subscriptions, for instance, to help patients suffering from chronic illnesses avoid having to make an appointment for each renewal”, the spokesperson told BFMTV.
It will also create one dedicated single-space for doctor-patient communication, which had previously been handled across several channels such as email, phone calls and text messages.
Patients will still have to make appointments using the booking tab (prendre rendez-vous) or by calling the number listed.
Member comments