Ann: Annual Report to shareholders, page-5

Link: https://www.healthcareit.com.au/art...-5-million-following-healthengine-controversy

Online GP booking market heats up as HotDoc raises $5 million following HealthEngine controversy

In the race to be the market force in online GP appointment booking, HealthEngine’s controversies may cost it the inside running, with competitor HotDoc announcing it has raised $5 million to supercharge its momentum.

The investments will boost the booking platform’s efforts to reach the "market leadership position" within the next three years, according to HotDoc chief executive and co-founder Dr Ben Hurst.

While there had been some gains from the month-long media storm sparked by a series of HealthEngine scandals earlier this year, Hurst said, the real gains had come from HotDoc’s divergent approach to data privacy and continuity of patient care.

"Those stories did create some buzz in the industry," Hurst told The Australian Financial Review.

"We've also had some success not just related to those news stories but because very early on we put a stake in the ground and said this is our company promise and we're going to uphold patient privacy and continuity of care.”

The “HotDoc Promise” says the company will “never endorse non evidence-based health services”, and will “never knowingly undermine continuity of care”. It will also “respect the privacy of patient details and maintain strict confidentiality of any patient information that we handle”.

HotDoc is aiming to portray this approach as a point of distinction from some of the past approaches of its recently beleaguered competitor.

Founded in 2006, HealthEngine grew rapidly to become Australia’s largest healthcare marketplace, with backers including SevenWest Media, Google and Telstra. In 2017, the company was estimated to be valued at up to $100 million – growth that was powered by the foothold it had gained in 2012 in the blossoming online healthcare appointment booking market.

But in June, the first of the bombshell reports was published, with Fairfax Media revealing that 53 per cent of the "positive" patient reviews of medical practices published on the platform had been edited, some drastically. The report was based on an analysis of original versus edited versions of 47,898 reviews that were visible via the HTML source code on the HealthEngine site.

Soon afterwards, an ABC investigation exposed the company for funnelling the private patient information of hundreds of patients to legal firms searching for personal injury cases, leading the Health Minister Greg Hunt to order an "urgent review".

As the coverage continued to unfold, HealthEngine also notified the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner that the identifying details of 75 of its users had been exposed via its website in line with the notifiable data breach scheme.

[Read more: Unblurring the lines and rebuilding trust: HITNA talks to HealthEngine’s CEO | New HealthEngine scandal raises scrutiny of digital health consent practices as Health Minister orders urgent review]

By July, HealthEngine had announced it was ditching some of its controversial marketing practices, with the company’s CEO conceding that confusion about the platform’s functions had contributed to a series of data use revelations.

Speaking to HITNA following a “tough couple of weeks”, Dr Marcus Tan said he had listened to criticism and was making changes in an attempt to rebuild trust.

“Whenever anybody questions your integrity or your ethics, it's always very difficult,” he said.

Third-party referrals, user reviews and banner advertising were all removed from the company’s new business model as the company focused on being a conduit between patients and practitioners.

Established six years ago, HotDoc has stayed within its lane but has continued to grow.
"We focus on the GP space as the primary reservoir of healthcare interactions. If you can't win in that space, moving into other spaces is premature. We look at the number of GPs on the platform as the measure of success," Hurst said.

The platform is now used by over 8,000 GPs and facilitates 600,000 appointments per month, which it expects will rise to 1 million by June next year.

Since its launch, it has seen the fortunes of a number of healthcare platforms rise and fall.
"We have already witnessed a huge amount of consolidation. There were 10 providers when we first started in 2012 and in the GP sector that's consolidated considerably," Hurst said.

Now the HocDoc, which integrates with MedicalDirector, Best Practice and ZedMed practice management systems, is looking to expand to provide other health sector services. Plans include launching into telehealth and payments, as well as providing patient engagement for related practitioners such as physiotherapists and osteopaths.

HotDoc raised the $5 million cash injection from Right Click Capital and AirTree Ventures, which support the Hurst’s vision.

“We invested in HotDoc because of the quality of their offering and their focus on the doctor-patient relationship,” AirTree partner Daniel Petre told the AFR.
“They were not focused on building directories or adding advertising but rather just doing things that helped clinics [and doctors] better deliver services to patients.”