On-Demand Healthcare Platforms: Impact of Question and Answer Service on Online Consultations and Offline Appointments

Abstract

On-demand healthcare platforms are increasingly integrating low-cost question and answer (Q&A) services to help patients navigate care options. Using data from a major Chinese health platform, this study shows that Q&A services drive both online and offline engagement—boosting online consultations by 2%, offline appointments by 4.3%, and consultation revenue by 6.6%. These services not only encourage follow-ups with the same doctor but also, generate spillover demand to other providers and specialties, especially those with higher professional titles. Patients benefit through better provider matching, fewer revisits, and reduced time spent browsing for care—all of which suggest improved outcomes. Q&A serves as an effective entry point, reducing uncertainty and guiding patients to the appropriate level of care. From an operational perspective, the service increases demand without cannibalizing higher-margin services, offering a low-cost lever for engagement and conversion. Platforms should incentivize generalists and junior doctors, who often serve as initial touchpoints and channel traffic to specialists, to maximize the broader impact of Q&A engagement. For providers and policymakers, the findings highlight how lightweight, scalable tools, like Q&A, can improve care access and coordination—especially in fragmented systems where patients select providers without formal referrals.The emerging on-demand healthcare platforms connect patients with healthcare practitioners to provide quick access to primary care and consultation services. These platforms can offer a question and answer (Q&A) service to patients to seek more information before they seek care online or offline. Using rich panel data from an on-demand healthcare platform in China, we investigate the impact of such a Q&A service on demands for online consultations and offline appointments. Our findings indicate that the Q&A service has a complementary effect on the demand for both online consultations and offline appointments. Specifically, we estimate that the Q&A service can increase online consultation service purchases and offline appointments by 2% and 4.3%, respectively. Additionally, users’ expenditures on the online consultation service can increase by 6.6%. We also find that the Q&A service leads to an increase in demand for the same doctor for online consultations while simultaneously increasing demand for other doctors across both channels. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the spillover effects of the Q&A service vary across different medical specialties and among providers of different professional titles. Patients tend to seek more specialized care in online and offline settings, suggesting better matching. Additionally, patients tend to seek care from doctors with higher titles. Finally, our results show that the use of the Q&A service reduces the need for future consultations and information-seeking behavior, suggesting improved health outcomes. In conclusion, our study highlights the effectiveness of Q&A-based information services in helping manage patients’ needs in the on-demand healthcare industry.History: Karthik Kannan, Senior Editor; Gordon Burtch, Associate Editor.Funding: W. Zhou acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72192823].Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2023.0644 .