Medical DX realized by Fast Doctor. Significantly reduce accounting work with PG Multi-Payment Service

Fast Doctor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fast Doctor") provides 24-hour online medical treatment and emergency home call services in cooperation with medical institutions. The company uses Credit card payment of GMO Payment Gateway, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as GMO-PG) comprehensive online payment service PG Multi-Payment Service to bill medical expenses from medical institutions.

The company, which aims to realize sustainable medical care with the mission of "eliminating the anxiety of consumers and the burden on medical professionals," spoke with Ken Atsumi of Fast DOCTOR Technologies' online business PM Group about the background, results, and future prospects of the introduction of PG Multi-Payment Service. (Company name, position, etc. as of May 2025)

Working with more than 4,800 healthcare professionals.Providing 24-hour medical services

Fast Doctor is a company that provides the medical platform "Fast Doctor" that supports both consumers and medical professionals. "We provide a variety of medical services in collaboration with medical institutions based on our mission of 'eliminating consumers' anxiety and the burden on medical professionals,'" explains Ken Atsumi, product manager for the company's online medical treatment area.

Ken Atsumi, Fast DOCTOR Technologies Online Business PM Group

"Fast Doctor, a service for consumers, is a comprehensive medical service that supports 24 hours a day, nationwide.We offer two types of medical reception services, online medical treatment and emergency home visits, and you can apply for medical treatment from anywhere at any time as long as you have an Internet environment (home calls are available in 11 prefectures).

The departments that can be handled vary depending on the service, but the online medical treatment I am in charge of supports a wide range of medical departments such as pediatrics, allergology, dermatology, psychosomatic medicine, and psychiatry, as well as internal medicine and fever outpatient clinics, and is used by people of all ages, from children to the elderly. Thanks to you, the number of uses of the platform has exceeded 1.75 million(as of the end of September 2024)."

Fast Doctor is easy to use by simply entering the necessary information from your smartphone or tablet and following the on-screen instructions to proceed with the application.
The procedure may vary depending on the content of the treatment, but online medical treatment basically proceeds as follows.

1. Enter information such as symptoms, name, and age from a dedicated form or app
2. A few minutes later, you will receive a short message with a link to your My Page
3. Register your insurance card, medical card, and payment method on My Page
4. When it's time for treatment, a video call button will be displayed, so click the button to receive medical treatment.
5. If you have a prescription drug, pick it up by home delivery or at a nearby pharmacy

* Pre-treatment consultations will be conducted by doctors at the time of treatment, and if online medical treatment is not applicable, we will cooperate with local medical institutions. In that case, no medical expenses will be incurred.

There are two types of payment methods: credit card payment and convenience store buy now pay later, and no matter which service you use, you don't have to pay a consultation fee to a medical institution on the spot.

Furthermore, if you pay by credit card, you can complete everything from medical treatment to receiving medicine and payment at home without going out when you are not feeling well.

Exchanging consultation fees during home visits is a burden on both doctors and patients.

Fast doctors originally provided services centered on emergency home visits. Until around 2019, the doctor who visited the doctor received the consultation fee directly in cash, so the burden of accounting was heavy.

"At the time of our founding, it was basic for doctors who went to house visits to receive consultation fees directly in cash from patients, but the burden of preparing cash for patients who were not feeling well and the fact that doctors also incurred everything from calculating medical fees to managing cash became an issue for both parties.

As a means of reducing this burden, we thought that credit card payment was an effective method, so we moved to completely cashless around the summer of 2019.
Later, in April 2020, when it became difficult to visit medical institutions due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the ban on online first visits was suddenly lifted, the cashless system in place had a great effect as a result."

As of 2025, we have introduced Credit card payment to the way patients payment in each of Fast Doctor's services, such as online medical consultations, emergency home visits, mental clinics, and medical counseling.

Accounting processing work per case is reduced by 20 to 30 minutes.Solving problems unique to medical institutions

Regarding the effects of introducing payment with credit cards, Atsumi, who is also in charge of implementing the billing function as a product manager, smiles and says, "The accounting work has been greatly reduced and the operational efficiency has improved."

"As a position to support the medical treatment of affiliated medical institutions, we handle the payment procedures for medical examination fees from patients.
Before going cashless, the amount transferred and the consultation fee sometimes did not match, and it took a lot of time and effort to check it. On the other hand, Credit card payment can be automated once the system is built, and there is almost no work required for each practice.
Since we can complete the accounting work without human intervention, we have reduced the time by about 20 to 30 minutes per case."

PG Multi-Payment Service is an online payment processing services that has been introduced to more than 160,000 merchants *1. Transaction volume has 6.89 billion transactions and Transaction value has 12.8 trillion yen *2, boasting the highest Actual in Japan.

"More than 70% of patients now choose to payment with a credit card, and we have not received any feedback from patients about problems at payment time, and we have been able to maintain a very good condition," says Atsumi.

PG Multi-Payment Service 's system, which stably handles a huge amount of payment, is also used by government agencies, and one of its strengths is its high average utilization rate of 99.999% *3.

"payment Service outages and system problems can lead to inconvenience to many customers.​ We will continue to make it easier for customers to use the service with peace of mind," says Daisei Yokoyama, sales director of GMO-PG.

GMO-PG Yokoyama Daisei

The benefits of billing with Credit card payment extend beyond reducing accounting time.
"It is also useful for companies like ours that provide medical services and medical institutions to solve problems unique to them," says Atsumi.

"The consultation fee for online medical treatment and home visits is not determined in advance, just like in general hospitals.
Therefore, we ask patients to register the payment method in advance for smooth accounting processing.
In the case of Credit card payment, we secure the amount with a authorization as a pre-payment and adjust it to the amount determined after the treatment. I think that being able to respond flexibly like this is an advantage unique to Credit card payment," says Atsumi.

▼Provisional operation image

*1 GMO-PG Epsilon, as of the end of March 2025
*2 GMO-PG, EPSILON, PS, cumulative from April 2024 to March 2025 Actual
*3 Credit cards from January 1, 2022 ~ December 31, 2024 Actual average. Excludes outages due to external failures and maintenance

We will switch to the OpenAPI type at the end of 2024.payment Consideration of expanding methods

Fast Doctor will change the credit card connection method to the OpenAPI type at the end of 2024.

PG Multi-Payment Service OpenAPI type is an API method unique to GMO-PG.
We accept payment method of 23 brands, including credit cards and Pay payment payment method.
Traditionally, the API that grew with each addition of payment method was grouped and optimized for four large payment method to minimize complexity.
In addition, it follows web standards that comply with global standards, streamlining the development process from design to integration.

Therefore, for example, if you connect Credit card payment with an OpenAPI type, it will be easier to select and deploy other payment method that can be connected with similar APIs.

Fast Doctor's switch from the traditional protocol type was associated with a renewal of the core system.

"There was talk within the company that 'if we are going to change it, let's make it a new and easy-to-use OpenAPI type,' so we decided to switch because it was a good opportunity.

The OpenAPI type has very rich documentation, and you can see how to use it just by looking at it, and it is easy to implement, which is very helpful.
In addition, since it follows the standard format of the web, there are no peculiarities in the API, and it is very easy to use from an engineer's point of view.

Currently, PG Multi-Payment Service only uses Credit card payment, but since we have made it an OpenAPI type, we are considering enhancing payment methods, such as Pay-based payment method."

In response to Mr. Atsumi's happy comment, "The OpenAPI type is grouping Pay-based payment, and the convenient point is that it can introduce major services at once," continues Yokoyama, sales director of GMO-PG.

"Through the OpenAPI type, we can present various payment methods other than credit cards to patients, and we believe that we can contribute to improving the convenience of patients. I am very happy to receive an evaluation of the OpenAPI type from an engineer's point of view."

We want to eliminate disparities in access to healthcare through online medical consultations

The service offered by the company is not limited to Fast Doctor.
​We also provide a number of services for medical professionals, such as "on-call agency services" to support medical institutions that provide home medical care, and "night and holiday rotation system support" to support medical systems in government and municipalities.
Fast Doctor provides a wide variety of medical services, but in what direction do you plan to develop your services in the future?

When I asked Mr. Atsumi about his future prospects, he said, "After all, I would like to expand online medical care."

"As is widely known, Japan is aging and the need for medical care is expected to increase further in the future. On the other hand, one of the major issues is that the concentration of the population in urban areas has created disparities in access to medical care, especially in rural areas.
To address these issues, it is necessary to eliminate the disparity in access to medical care by region by using online medical consultations such as Fast Doctor, and to create an environment where more people can receive medical treatment when they need it."

In response to the worsening shortage of doctors in rural areas, Fast Doctor has already implemented several pilot initiatives.
From November 2024 to March 2025, we will collaborate with the local independent administrative agency Naha City Hospital to develop a local nighttime pediatric emergency system. In response to the hospital's challenges in pediatric emergency services at night, we have sought to stabilize local medical care by introducing online medical consultations.

Based on these efforts, "Recently, the number of devices that can remotely check patients' vital data, such as online stethoscopes, has been gradually increasing.

Another strength of online medical treatment is that it is possible to create an environment that takes into account the circumstances of the doctor.
"There are many cases where doctors who have completed childbirth or childcare leave are returning to work from part-time to online medical care, and I think that the provision of online medical treatment systems is also contributing to the reform of doctors' work styles," says Atsumi.

"Convenience and stability" are the keys to consumer services

Although they want to promote DX, there are many medical institutions that are worried about specific methods.
Finally, we asked Mr. Atsumi about tips for medical institutions that want to engage in DX.

"payment field already has a number of best practices in place. There are also several services that make it easy to implement these best practices.
By introducing such a system, we can achieve a highly convenient environment for both patients and medical institutions without exerting extra effort.

In promoting medical DX, we believe that it will become increasingly important to actively incorporate reliable and stable existing services in the future.
In particular, in medical care and other services for consumers, "convenience" and "safety" are essential factors.
PG Multi-Payment Service is a service that combines both. We look forward to further improving convenience and safety in the future."