House Call Doctors are Perfect for Expat Parents. Here is why.
Finding a good, trusted doctor for your child can be really difficult. It’s even harder when you’ve just moved to another country and are trying to get settled down. In fact, in an InterNations survey, 13% of expats expressed insufficient healthcare standards as one of their biggest concerns when moving.
Luckily for you, Singapore has the world’s most efficient healthcare system, so you’ll be able to find great doctors. But, with over 20 private and public hospitals as well as thousands of private clinics in the country, it can be quite overwhelming to navigate the system.
How will you choose which doctor to go to? Easy. Get them to come to you! For more common and benign conditions like a bad cough or a fever, we’d recommend engaging a house call doctor. These services help to save time, offer great personalised service, and even provide vaccination services, all in the comfort of your own home!
House call doctors help parents save time
One of the key benefits of having a doctor come to your house instead of going to a clinic yourself is, of course, the amount of time you’re saving. After all, time is money, especially when you’re a busy parent getting settled in a new country.
But, when your child falls sick with the common cold or has a fever, what are your healthcare options? You can choose to go to a public polyclinic, which will probably have the longest waiting times because it is subsidised for locals. It was actually found that median waiting times in polyclinics increased by 30% between just 2016 and 2017!
You can also find a general practitioner (GP) in your neighbourhood, which tends to have shorter waiting times but could still take up to an hour depending on how busy it is.
Instead, to save time, you could engage a house call doctor. Using our doctors-on-demand service, you can easily request a consultation and have a fully-licensed doctor come right to your doorstep usually within the hour. This means you’ll be able to do what you need to do around the house while you wait. More importantly, your child will be able to rest comfortably at home.
House call doctor bills are upfront and transparent
If you are an expat worried about the price of healthcare in Singapore, you can rest easy. Singapore’s healthcare system, in general, is very affordable, especially when you compare it to countries like the United States and even Hong Kong. Even house call doctors have become more and more affordable in recent years!
For example, engaging a house call doctor for a medical consultation when your child is feeling unwell should cost you not that much more than going to a private GP in the country. It is also important to note that polyclinics, which are the country’s public healthcare clinics, do not provide subsidies for permanent residents or non-residents.
You don’t have to worry about the uncertainty of costs when you request a house call doctor in Singapore using our app. Through our system, fees are displayed upfront prior to your confirmation of our service. This helps to ensure you won’t be hit with hidden fees or be surprised by the fee after the consultation.
Parents can easily follow-up with house call doctors
We’ve often heard that there is a trade-off between waiting times and building a relationship with your doctor. For example, if you want a shorter waiting time, you would probably need to go to a larger clinic, where there are more doctors to go through patients quicker, and vice-versa. But, in Deloitte’s recent Survey of US Health Care Consumers, a whopping 75% of respondents expressed wanting to work closely with their healthcare providers to come up with the best treatment options. That’s why we believe house call doctors are the best of both worlds: no waiting time and fantastic personalised service.
With Speedoc’s house call doctors, your consultation doesn’t end when they leave your house. If two days down the road, you have a question about the medicine your child is taking, you can use the in-app chat function to have a quick consultation with the doctor. This allows your doctor to keep tabs on your child’s condition until it has been resolved, which also means you don’t have to fork out money for extra doctor visits!
Parents can request specialised child healthcare services
Getting a doctor when your child is sick is one thing, but ensuring your child doesn’t fall sick in the first place is another. It can be stressful trying to figure out exactly what vaccinations your child needs as well as when to get boosters, check-ups, and more. That’s where a house call doctor comes in.
Our newly-launched Children Health package is equipped to help all parents approach their children’s healthcare with confidence. In addition to carrying out all the vaccines recommended by Singapore’s Ministry of Health across 18 months, the package also includes unlimited telemedicine and email support. This means that you’ll be able to ask all the questions you have to qualified professionals and get the answers you need.
Best of all, the vaccinations will be carried out in your own home, so you don’t have to worry about your child catching germs from hospital waiting rooms.
Consult with Speedoc’s team of licensed professionals
If you are interested in trying out house call doctors for your family, you can make an appointment to consult one of Speedoc’s licensed doctors by downloading our app on the App Store or Google Play Store, or contact our hotline at +65 8180 8948.
