Frequently Asked Questions

NeedsDoctor is a healthcare directory and booking platform. You can search for registered practitioners and hospitals across allopathic, ayurvedic and homeopathic systems of medicine, request appointments, and keep your own health record in one place.

We are a technology platform — we do not provide medical care ourselves. Any consultation or treatment is provided by the independent practitioner you choose. See our Medical Disclaimer.

Creating an account, searching for practitioners and requesting an appointment are free. Consultation and treatment fees are set and collected by the practitioner or hospital directly — not by us. Any fee shown on a profile is the figure that provider supplied, and is indicative. Always confirm the final amount with them.

Just four things: your full name, email address, phone number and a password. That is deliberately all we ask up front.

Everything else — date of birth, gender, address, photo and any health information — is optional and can be added later from your dashboard, whenever it suits you.

Verification confirms the address is really yours, so appointment confirmations and password resets reach you and not someone else. After registering, we send you a verification link — click it to activate your account.

If the email has not arrived, check your spam or junk folder first. If it is still missing, contact us at info@needsdoctor.com.

Click Forgot Password on the sign-in page and enter your registered email. We will email you a secure reset link that is valid for a limited time and can be used once.

Each portal — patient, doctor, hospital, manager and pharma — has its own sign-in page and its own reset link, so use the one matching your account type.

Find a practitioner using Find a Doctor — you can filter by speciality, location, consultation fee and years of experience — then open their profile and request an appointment.

Your request goes to the practitioner. It is confirmed only when they accept it, and you will be notified on the platform and by email.

No. Booking creates a request. The practitioner reviews and accepts, declines or proposes a different time. You can see the current status any time under My Appointments in your dashboard.

Open My Appointments in your dashboard. You can cancel there, or use the reschedule option to request a different time.

We charge nothing to cancel. Your practitioner may have their own notice period or late cancellation charge, so please check with them and cancel as early as you can — it frees the slot for someone else. Full detail is in our Refund & Cancellation Policy.

Payment is made directly to the practitioner or hospital, under their own terms. NeedsDoctor does not currently collect consultation fees online, so there is nothing to pay us when you book.

You will be notified, and you are free to book someone else at no cost. If you had already paid that provider for a consultation that did not happen, ask them for a refund directly. If it is not resolved, tell us at info@needsdoctor.com — we cannot compel a refund, but repeated complaints can affect a provider's listing.

Some practitioners offer remote consultation. Where they do, it is conducted under the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines, 2020 and entirely at their professional discretion — they may decide your situation needs an in-person examination and ask you to attend in person instead.

No — it is entirely optional. You can find a practitioner and book an appointment without entering any health information at all.

If you do choose to complete it, your dashboard shows a completeness indicator so you can see what is still blank. Nothing is gated behind it.

Vitals (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate), allergies, current medication, personal and family history, past diseases and procedures, and uploaded reports or scans. You can edit or delete any of it at any time.

You, and the practitioner you have booked with — in the context of providing your care. It is not public, not shared with advertisers, and not used for profiling. Our Privacy Policy sets out exactly who receives what and why.

No. It is a personal convenience tool. Entries are self-reported and not clinically verified, so keep your own copies of important reports and never rely on it as your only record. Always tell your practitioner directly what matters clinically rather than assuming they have read everything you typed.

You describe your symptoms — either by typing them or picking from the common-symptom shortcuts — and it suggests which kind of specialist might be relevant, along with any matching practitioners on the platform.

No. It is a navigation aid, not a diagnostic tool. It cannot examine you, does not know your history, and can be wrong. A result of "no specialties identified" is not reassurance that nothing is wrong.

If something worries you, see a qualified practitioner. In an emergency call 112 or 108 — do not use this platform.

The text is sent to our third-party AI provider so it can generate a response, and we keep a record of the interaction to monitor quality and prevent misuse.

Because of that, please avoid entering identifying details such as your full name, contact details or ID numbers. Describing symptoms in general terms is enough for it to be useful.

Register through the doctor, hospital or pharma vendor sign-up page. Like patient registration, we ask only for the basics up front — you build out your professional profile afterwards from your dashboard.

Two common reasons. First, new practitioner listings may need review and approval before they become publicly visible. Second, an incomplete profile may not match the filters patients are searching with — your dashboard shows a completeness indicator telling you what is still missing, such as speciality, city or consultation fee.

Yes. Doctors and hospitals both have a Services Offered section where you can add each service with an optional price and a short description. Doctor services appear on your public profile.

You must hold valid registration with the relevant council for your system of medicine, keep every published detail accurate and current, comply with your professional and ethical obligations (including the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines when consulting remotely), and handle patient information confidentially. The full list is in our Terms and Conditions.

No. Pharmaceutical vendors can publish product information only, and listings are moderated. NeedsDoctor is not an online pharmacy — we do not sell, dispense or deliver medicines.

Passwords are stored only as bcrypt hashes — never in readable form. Traffic is encrypted over HTTPS, forms are protected with anti-CSRF tokens, sign-in attempts are rate limited, and database access uses parameterised queries. Our Privacy Policy has the full list.

No. We do not sell personal data, we do not share health information with advertisers, and we do not use it for advertising or profiling.

Email info@needsdoctor.com from your registered address. We may need to verify your identity, then we erase or irreversibly anonymise your personal data — except anything we are legally required to retain. We aim to complete requests within 30 days.

Yes. Most profile and health information you can edit yourself from your dashboard. For a summary of everything we hold, or for corrections you cannot make yourself, write to info@needsdoctor.com. Your rights are set out in our Privacy Policy.