Navigating Digital Healthcare services with Accessibility Barriers | My MediBuddy application experience on IOS with VoiceOver

As a single income earner with a family, including elderly parents, access to quality healthcare is paramount. Thankfully, our company, 塔塔咨询服务公司 offers a fantastic health insurance benefit facilitated by MediBuddy . This app promises online doctor consultations, lab tests, and medicine delivery – all valuable tools for managing healthcare needs.

However, for me, a sight-impaired user relying on VoiceOver, an assistive technology, on IOS Devices, the MediBuddy app presents a significant challenge. The interface is cluttered, lacks proper menu navigation, and falls short in terms of accessibility. My experience attempting an online consultation highlights this issue perfectly.

Big B's commercials for MediBuddy advertise a ten-minute online consultation – a dream for sighted users. But my reality, using VoiceOver, was a frustrating 30-minute struggle. The app's design made navigating to the consultation option a confusing odyssey. Even after reaching that point, doubt lingered about whether I'd successfully initiated the consultation. Fortunately, a doctor did connect and provided a prescription after our discussion. However, the prescription, delivered in an inaccessible PDF format, left me helpless. Thankfully, ChatGPT - New! came to the rescue, extracting the text so I could understand the medication details.

MediBuddy also offers a pharmacy service with attractive discounts on prescribed medications. Ordering through the app, however, proved another accessibility hurdle. The process was so complex, I almost gave up. Nevertheless, perseverance paid off. I managed to order the medication, pay online for non-pharmacy items, and receive everything in a single-day home delivery – a testament to the pharmacy team's efficiency.

The overall experience with the MediBuddy application with assistive technologies like VoiceOVer highlights a critical issue – the lack of accessibility in the MediBuddy app. This effectively excludes users like me, who rely on assistive technologies, from fully utilizing the health benefits offered by TCS. I reached out to MediBuddy's support team via calls and emails, hoping to raise these accessibility concerns. Unfortunately, they seemed to miss the mark, failing to grasp the challenges I face in using their app.

This experience compels me to urge TCS to take a strong stance with MediBuddy, their healthcare provider. Ensuring WCAG compliance for the MediBuddy app is crucial. This will guarantee that all TCS associates, regardless of ability, can leverage the healthcare benefits they rightfully deserve, especially considering these benefits are part of our compensation package.

For someone like me, a single income earner with a family and aging parents with growing medical needs, an accessible MediBuddy app would be a lifeline in emergencies. It would empower me to manage our healthcare needs efficiently, reducing stress and financial burdens.

Let's not let accessibility barriers stand in the way of well-being. Together, TCS and MediBuddy can champion inclusion, ensuring everyone can access the healthcare they need.