Zocdoc opens appointment scheduling architecture to health partners

Zocdoc is opening up its appointment scheduling architecture in a move the company says will make the digital front door accessible to all patients.

In an announcement yesterday, Zocdoc unveiled the Care Access Network, which will let its partners implement its appointment-scheduling system for real-time booking on the partners' platforms.

For example, a payer partner can install the Zocdoc healthcare access infrastructure directly on its website, allowing members to find in-network care and book appointments without leaving the payer's site.

Traditionally, healthcare consumers have accessed the Zocdoc booking system straight from the Zocdoc website itself.

Partners, which can include not just payers and providers but also AI platforms or online review websites, can plug in Zocdoc's system using one of several integrations. These include machine-readable data feeds, Zocdoc's developer API or Zocdoc's MCP server for AI experiences.

The Care Access Network represents a big step outside of Zocdoc's marketplace, the company said.

"Over nearly two decades, we have been relentlessly focused on making access to care work for patients solely on Zocdoc," Oliver Kharraz, M.D., founder and CEO of Zocdoc, said in the announcement.

"Our next chapter is about powering frictionless access to care beyond our marketplace, everywhere patients search. No one can, or should, own the front door to care. There are many, and they all belong to the patient. Our job is to make sure every door to care opens, every time patients knock."

The move also reflects the playbook of other service industries, such as retail or travel. These industries have some elements of a shared infrastructure that helps the consumer move through their buyer journey. According to Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures, which made an early investment in Zocdoc, this development should position Zocdoc as one of healthcare's shared infrastructures.

"Healthcare is the last major consumer industry where people can't easily go from seeking to getting," Khosla said in the press release. "Virtually every other consumer industry has a universal infrastructure layer: retail has Shopify, payments has Stripe, travel has Sabre. Now healthcare has Zocdoc."

The Care Access Network already has a few early adopters. Just last month, Zocdoc announced its partnership with Google's Gemini. Gemini users can use the chatbot to find a provider and book an appointment by leveraging Gemini's agentic capabilities and Zocdoc's infrastructure.

Zocdoc has also partnered with Amazon Health AI, Yelp, Healthgrades, Blue Shield of California, WellHive and some search engines.

The company said the Care Access Network is already making a difference. Blue Shield of California, for example, has seen 2 million more hours of bookable appointments in a 90-day window. That's yielded a 600% bump in appointments booked and reduced the average appointment wait time to six days – far less than the national average of 31 days.

Zocdoc said it plans to announce more partners in the coming weeks and months.

Sara Heath is an executive editor at Xtelligent Healthcare Media, where she covers patient engagement, healthcare policy and health IT.