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A pr 01 201 7 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Just What the Doc Ordered

A bunch of healthcare startups is going beyond plain vanilla doctor
appointments by identifying unserved niches, Rajiv Singh finds out

CREDIHEALTH

Going for Second Opinion

Ravi Virmani was made to believe that only porn, ecommerce and stocks are searched
on inter net in India. The perception, he asserts, proved to be erroneous when he rolled
out Credihealth, an online platform that allows patients to compare and select
hospitalisation process, in January 2014. Read the article and share your views on
How a bunch of healthcare startups is tapping
For Virmani, who worked as the chief executive of Max Healthcare for over three unserved niches
years, the trigger for starting a healthcare startup was the need for people to take a
second opinion. Many a time, he says, due to lack of right information and transparency,
people are misguided and overcharged for medical services. Prevalence of unethical
practices in healthcare delivery -touts, misguidance, referrals by family doctors increasing
bills by 3540% -also made him to think of an alternative platform for patients.

I wanted to bring transparency in healthcare system, contends Virmani. It raised an

undisclosed amount from Twitter India director of engineering Rajat Malhotra last
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 September. Present in 15 cities, Credihealth plans to expand its reach to 45 in two years.

80% of Indians are not insured, and even those who are have to shell out extra, he
says, adding that perception that big hospital chains tend to overcharge by prescribing
unrequired tests can be addressed by taking a second opinion.

SURGIVISOR

A Stitch In Time

Surgery is a dreaded word, and Sumeet Khanna wanted to take o the fear out of the
word and the proa cess. Surgivisor, he claims, is helping h in bridging the gap between
patients and hospitals. Started in January c last year, Surgivisor assists people in r
choosing the right hospital and doctor d choosing the right hospital a for surgeries by
streamlining the entire process.

K hanna, cofounder of Surgivisor, explains how: the online healthcare platform

provides information on relevant procedures, hospitals, specialist doctors and surgeons,
cost of surgery, insurance and location preferences. From answering a small query to
understanding the patient's complete requirement and initiating the treatment takes not
more than 30 minutes, he adds. The biggest challenge, Khanna reck ons, lies in
constantly providing correct and reliable information on procedures, hospitals and
doctors to patients, along with that on the most cost-effective and customised service
and support track record. We need to maintain highest degree of professional standards
and excellence at all times, he says. Revenue comes from marketing and development
fees from partner hospitals.

Though the task looks easy, challenges were ga lore. Apart from data collec tion,
mining, mapping and search optimisation, sensi tising people on making in formed
decision was equally daunting. Currently present in Delhi-NCR. The startup is planning to
expand to Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai.

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 CELES CARE

Right Dose of Virtual Reality

Raghu Bathina knew he could easily fill the huge gap existed between `Dr.

Google' and a hospital visit. While Dr.Google -the habit to hunt for health-related
Google -the habit to hunt for health-related queries on Google -is free, convenient and P
informative, it's equally inconclusive and c confusing. A hospital visit, on the other hand, c
is not only inconvenient and expensive, it's v non-empowering and there is no continuity
between visits.

A Enter Celes Care, India's first virtual r health clinic for women. We are as easy to
access as Google and as qualified as a doctor in the hospital, says Bathina, who p
cofounded the company with Dr Rajah t Koppala in August last year. Celes has a team of
15 medical professionals and plans to scale it up to 40 this year.

The trigger, explains Bathina, for starting Celes Care was lack of access of affordable
primary healthcare to women. According to a recent Nielsen global survey, Indian women
happened to be most stressed. An overwhelming 87% of them felt stressed most of the
time, and 82% had no time to relax.

The primary healthcare segment, says Bathina, is still untapped, and there is a huge
potential. We also plan to work alongside large corporates and insurance providers and
be a one-stop solution for women's health needs, he says.

KONSULT

Your Instant Medical Consultant

More than half of all medical follow ups, says Anshul Mittal, can be done remotely
without the patient being physically present. The patient-not-present (PNP) market is a
huge opportunity, says cofounder of Konsult, a tele-consul tation platform rolled out in

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 June 2015.

Traditionally, the only channel left for patients was to schedule another OPD visit even
for minor or simple follow-up queries, says Mittal. This, in turn, leads to patients falling
out in the follow-up period and ignoring their health due to constraints of time and
money, and sometimes general lethargy.

We do not even bother to finish the course of medicine once we start to re cover,
says Mittal, and not doing the follow up could lead to serious reper cussions. Tele
consultations turn out to be cheaper than visiting a hospital because the patient pays
based on the duration of the call and also saves time and opportunity cost. Since May
2016, when Konsult rolled out a new version of the app, it has on boarded 1,200
specialist doctors and served more than 25,000 patients.This year, it launched a user
concierge and doctor recommendation service which provides localised advice on best
doctors, treatments and costs.

Indian healthcare system, he points out, is so saturated that personal patient care is
almost negligible. We want to change that, he says.

AFFORDPLAN

Plan Your Hospital Bills

What if hospitals provide you a tai lored solution to plan, save and pay for non-
emergency medical procedures such as those related to pregnancy, eyecare, dental,
plastic surgeries, orthopedic, bariatric, genetic testing and so on? That's what Affordplan
does.

It allows people to save on a daily, week ly, or monthly basis, as per their chosen
plan, and then make regular payments either by online transfer or depositing money at
hospitals, or patients can avail of pickup services directly from the comfort of their home.

Reports by insurance regulator, points out cofounder Tejbir Singh, indicate that less
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 than 20% of Indians have health cover. Other numbers are equally shocking.More than
300 million Indians, earning `2-10 lakh a year, struggle to get quality medical care.
Liquidity constraints prevent a number of patients from paying a lump sum amount at
the time of hospital admission, adds Singh, who started Affordplan in December 2015
and piloted the service in May last year.

Affordplan is bridging this gap between the patients and hospitals by enabling
hospitals to offer customised financial solutions to patients, he says. It is present in
more than 120 hospitals in Delhi-NCR and patients can avail of benefits at OPD visits,
follow-on checkups and diagnostics related to treatment. The startup, which gets a
transaction fee from hospitals, plans to expand to three more cities over next year.

MAYA

Taking Care of Menstrual Hygiene

John Paul talks on the basis of num bers. In India, he says, about 70% of all
reproductive diseases are caused by poor menstrual hygiene. There are 355 million
women of reproductive age in India who need structures in place to meet their menstrual
needs.

That's where and why Maya comes into the picture.

Launched in India last year, Maya helps women track their menstrual cycles, related
symptoms and other vital health information and gives them valuable insights based on
the tracked data.Taking advantage of smartphone coverage in even the remote corners
of India, Maya aims to equip women to manage their menstrual health using a mobile
phone, says Paul, who first launched Maya globally in 2012 and has had over 7 million
downloads so far.

Women can also use Maya to increase accuracy of contraception and conception,
says Paul. It helps women with the knowledge and support to understand how their
fertility works and enables them to take ownership of their reproductive health. According
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 to research done by the startup, almost half the women in India have irregular menstrual
cycles, which, if untreated, could lead to health issues such as infertility and polycystic
ovary syndrome (a disorder causing enlarged ovaries with small cysts on the outer
edges). Menstrual hygiene, Paul says, is one of the most important, yet neglected, health
issues.

The startup recently launched Maya in Hindi and Tamil and plans to cover more
regional languages soon.

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