DocNow — Book a Doctor Instantly 🩺

DocNow is a full-stack telemedicine platform that lets patients find and book verified doctors, consult via live video calls, and manage their health — all from one place. Built with Next.js and powered by a credit-based system, it handles everything from scheduling to doctor payments.

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What This Project Does

Honestly, the idea is pretty simple — going to a doctor shouldn't feel like a chore. DocNow lets you skip the waiting rooms and book a slot with a verified specialist in under 2 minutes. Doctors get their own dashboard to manage their availability and pull payouts. Admins can oversee the whole thing from a separate panel.

Here's a quick breakdown of what each role can do:

As a Patient:

• Browse through a list of verified doctors filtered by specialty
• Book an appointment by picking an available time slot
• Join a live video consultation right from the browser (no downloads needed)
• Buy credits to book appointments
• Cancel bookings and get a refund to your credit wallet

As a Doctor:

• Set your weekly availability with flexible time slots
• Accept incoming appointments from patients
• Conduct video consultations with notes
• Track your earnings and request a payout

As an Admin:

• Verify or reject doctor applications
• Adjust user credits manually
• Process pending doctor payout requests
• Overview the entire platform activity

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Tech Stack

This project is built on a modern stack that keeps things fast and maintainable:

Layer	Technology
Framework	Next.js 16 (App Router)
Auth	Clerk
Database	PostgreSQL via Prisma ORM
Video Calls	Vonage Video API
UI Components	shadcn/ui + Radix UI
Styling	Tailwind CSS v4
Forms	React Hook Form + Zod
Notifications	Sonner

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

Before running the project, make sure you have:

• Node.js 18 or above
• A PostgreSQL database (local or hosted like Neon / Supabase)
• A Clerk account for authentication
• A Vonage account for video call tokens

1. Clone and Install

git clone https://github.com/your-username/docnow.git
cd docnow
npm install

2. Set Up Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root directory and fill in the following:

# Database
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:password@localhost:5432/docnow"

# Clerk Auth
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_PUBLISHABLE_KEY=pk_test_...
CLERK_SECRET_KEY=sk_test_...
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_IN_URL=/sign-in
NEXT_PUBLIC_CLERK_SIGN_UP_URL=/sign-up

# Vonage (for video calls)
VONAGE_API_KEY=your_api_key
VONAGE_API_SECRET=your_api_secret

# Admin
NEXT_PUBLIC_ADMIN_EMAILS=your@email.com

3. Set Up the Database

# Push schema to your database
npx prisma db push

# Or run migrations if you prefer
npx prisma migrate dev

4. Run the Development Server

npm run dev

Open http://localhost:3000 and you should see the landing page.

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Project Structure

health/
├── app/
│   ├── (auth)/          # Sign in / Sign up pages (Clerk)
│   ├── (main)/
│   │   ├── admin/       # Admin dashboard
│   │   ├── doctor/      # Doctor dashboard (availability, appointments)
│   │   ├── doctors/     # Patient-facing doctor listing
│   │   ├── appointments/# Patient appointment history
│   │   ├── onboarding/  # Role selection after signup
│   │   ├── pricing/     # Credit plans
│   │   └── video-call/  # Live video consultation room
│   └── api/             # API routes (webhooks, Vonage tokens, etc.)
├── actions/             # Server actions (bookings, credits, payouts)
├── components/          # Reusable UI components
├── hooks/               # Custom React hooks
├── lib/                 # Utility functions and static data
└── prisma/
    └── schema.prisma    # Database schema

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How the Credit System Works

Credits are the currency of the platform. Here's the flow:

1. New users get a small number of free credits when they sign up
2. Patients spend credits to book appointments (amount depends on their subscription plan)
3. Doctors earn credits every time an appointment is completed
4. Doctors can request a payout — the platform takes a small fee and the rest goes to them
5. Admins can manually adjust credits (for refunds, adjustments, etc.)

All credit movements are stored as CreditTransaction records so there's a full audit trail.

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Database Schema Overview

The core models in Prisma:

• User — single model shared across Patient, Doctor, and Admin roles
• Availability — time slots that doctors open up for booking
• Appointment — links a patient and doctor to a specific slot with status tracking
• CreditTransaction — every credit movement (purchase, deduction, refund, earning)
• Payout — doctor payout requests with platform fee calculation

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Video Calls

Video consultations use the Vonage Video API. When a patient joins their appointment, the server generates a session and token pair using the Vonage Server SDK. Both patient and doctor receive their respective tokens and connect directly in the browser using WebRTC — no plugins, no downloads.

The video room is accessible via /video-call/[appointmentId].

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Deployment

To build for production:

npm run build
npm run start

You can deploy this on Vercel (recommended for Next.js), Railway, or any platform that supports Node.js. Make sure all your environment variables are set in the deployment dashboard before going live.

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Contributing

Feel free to fork the repo and open a pull request. If you find a bug or have a feature idea, open an issue and let's talk about it.

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License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

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Built with ❤️ using Next.js, Prisma, and Vonage.