Picture the scene: a traveller calls in sick, hundreds of kilometres from home, in a country where they don't know a single doctor's name. Your coordinator is the one who has to sort it out — fast, and often in a language that isn't the traveller's first. That's the exact gap Docto is built for. It gives travel assistance teams a video-consultation pathway for travellers in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, one that slots in alongside whatever network you've already built, instead of asking you to start over.

What Docto actually does

Docto specialises in video consultations for travellers, and it's built around the cases assistance teams handle on repeat:

• Coughs, colds and sore throats
• Fever and other minor acute illnesses
• Medication advice
• Prescriptions, where clinically appropriate
• Referrals, where clinically appropriate
• Medical reports for case management and claims administration

The idea is simple: resolve the suitable, non-emergency cases quickly — often the same day — instead of sending a traveller off to locate, travel to and wait at a clinic. For someone on a short-term holiday, a working-holiday visa or an extended stay, that matters. They don't know the local system, they might not have a car, and honestly, most people would rather just talk to a doctor from wherever they're already staying.

Who's it actually for?

Assistance providers rarely support one type of traveller. It's a mix — young working-holiday travellers, holidaymakers, long-stay visitors, families with kids in tow. Docto supports all of them, including children. Acute paediatric presentations like coughs, colds, sore throats and fevers can be managed through the same telemedicine service, where it's clinically suitable.

That gives your team one consistent first pathway, whether the person needing help is 22 and backpacking or 6 and travelling with their parents.

How does the coordination actually work?

This is where it gets practical. Once an assistance company is set up, the team gets access to a self-service portal. From there, coordinators book a consultation directly: pick an appointment time, enter the details the doctor needs to consult with the traveller, done.

The portal handles returning patients too — if someone's been referred before, their details come back up instead of being entered from scratch again.

For every booking, your team can:

• Provide the relevant contact and case information
• Specify exactly where the report should be sent
• Add the right participants to the consultation

That last one covers more people than you might expect — a case manager, a family member, an interpreter, an internal medical or assistance representative. And where language support is needed, Docto's multilingual administration team can step in. Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking assistants are the most commonly requested, and translators can be arranged at booking time or added later if the case develops.

Can you actually see where every case stands?

Anyone who's worked in medical assistance knows the real challenge isn't arranging one consultation — it's keeping track of fifty of them at once. The Docto portal gives coordinators a dashboard view of referred patients and appointment status: pending, attended, whatever stage it's at. Teams can open any individual referral to see the case details and pull up the doctor's report directly.

Reports also get emailed straight to the assistance company, so the clinical outcome feeds into your own case management, claims handling or member communication without anyone having to chase it down. That's especially useful when you need documentation to close a case, arrange medication, advise the insurer, or work out whether an in-person assessment is actually needed.

Who books the appointment — you or the traveller?

Not every assistance company runs the same playbook, and Docto doesn't force one. Some teams want every consultation coordinated in-house. Others would rather hand straightforward cases to the traveller directly. Both work here — a coordinator can book on the traveller's behalf, or send an invitation for the traveller to book their own appointment through the platform.

In practice, that means three models can all sit under one account:

• Fully coordinated — the assistance team books every appointment
• Hybrid — coordinators handle complex cases, and send links for the simple ones
• Member-led — travellers self-book, while the assistance company keeps visibility through reports and portal records

What happens when telemedicine isn't enough?

Worth being upfront about this one: Docto is a telehealth service, not an in-person clinic network. So it's built for cases that can be safely assessed and managed over video. If a traveller needs an in-person doctor, a clinic visit, emergency treatment or another local provider, that still runs through your own network or process.

For most assistance providers, that's not a dealbreaker — it's actually where the value sits. Telemedicine becomes the fast first step for the common cases, and helps you work out early whether an in-person pathway is even necessary.

Where does Docto actually work?

Coverage currently spans Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Ireland. For assistance companies with travellers coming from Latin America, Europe and elsewhere, Australia and New Zealand tend to be the destinations that matter most — they pull in a lot of working-holiday travellers and longer-stay visitors on top of the usual tourism traffic. Having one consistent telemedicine service across both countries means a more predictable medical experience for your travellers, no matter which of the two they land in.

Can it flex as your volumes change?

Medical assistance volumes rarely move in a straight line. One month it's a handful of cases, the next it's a spike from seasonal travel, a new distribution partner, or a jump in working-holiday numbers. Docto is built to flex with that — suitable for providers starting with a small monthly caseload as well as those planning for real scale down the line. That means you can introduce a medical telemedicine benefit without committing to a minimum volume, or building a clinical operation of your own.

How does invoicing actually work?

Every consultation comes with an invoice, handled per consultation or grouped into a monthly batch — whichever fits your process better. Monthly invoicing tends to suit international providers reconciling multiple cases through a central finance team, with payment terms agreed in advance and invoices settled on schedule.

Payments run in USD, through:

• Wise
• Bank transfer
• Credit card
• Pre-authorisation via Pinch Payments

Credit cards work, though card fees may apply. A credit-card pre-authorisation is also used as a standard safeguard on monthly invoicing arrangements — it only becomes relevant if invoices go unpaid.

What about international contracting?

For companies operating out of countries with stricter bank-transfer or compliance requirements, a signed contract may need to be in place before payments can start — particularly where banks require supporting documentation for international transfers. Docto can work through the service agreement with you before account activation and referral activity begins. And for organisations running multiple brands, separate agreements can be prepared on the same commercial terms, with each contract reflecting the relevant brand name.

The bottom line

Using Docto doesn't mean replacing your existing medical network or operating model. It's an added layer — a responsive telemedicine option for the common cases, simple for coordinators to run and easy for travellers to access, built around the documentation and visibility your team actually needs day to day.

For a traveller, that can mean getting medical advice without trying to navigate an unfamiliar healthcare system alone. For your team, it can mean a clearer, faster way to coordinate medical support across Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland.

CONTACT DOCTO TO OPEN YOUR TRAVEL ASSISTANCE ACCOUNT TODAY.