Digital Players Out to Eat Doctor's Practice in India скачать в хорошем качестве

Digital Players Out to Eat Doctor's Practice in India

The healthcare digital platforms like Practo, Pristyn Care, Mfine, Credihealth etc are all trying to become unicorns in the shortest possible time. They are trying to snatch the market share in the fields of Doctor Consultation, Diagnostics and Surgery. The estimated market size for these things is in the range of USD 40-60 billion equivalent to Rs. 3-5 Lac Crores. Practo in the year 2008 started by offering free software for patient appointments to the doctor clinics and smaller hospitals. Soon they were selling packages to the doctors by charging just 10-20% of the consultation fee. Today they claim that they have 50% gross margins which means that they are charging 50% of the consultation fee from the doctors. The secondary care surgical market is estimated to be 10-12 Billion USD and these digital disrupters are now eyeing this market. They have entered this market after seeing that the doctors provide the same service at vastly different rates. One of the most commonly done surgery is Gall Bladder Removal for treatment of Gall Stones. This surgery is commonly done for Rs. 30-40 thousand for cash patients at most of the nursing homes in the country. Those on CGHS panel are doing this surgery for Rs. 10 thousand. The digital players believe that if they can capture all the cash and insurance patients then they can get the job done by the doctors on CGHS rates while they would charge Cash / Insurance rates from the patients and make a hefty profit. Today the hospitals have a patient mix of cash patients, insurance patients and panel patients. The time is not far when the doctors would be getting reimbursed for their services on CGHS rates for all the patients even the cash patients. Modus Operandi The modus operandi of the digital disrupters is quite simple. They have realized that the hospitals do not spend on their digital marketing so these digital players have monopolized the internet and the search engine field. Every doctor in a city is a brand with a certain following. Part of this brand gets amalgamated with the hospital which you own or are working at. The digital disrupters will first get hold of your own patients who would be coming to you through them because of CASH BURNING. You have to understand what is cash burning. If you are doing a surgery for Rs. 30 thousand, the digital disrupters will offer the same surgery for Rs. 25 thousand to the patient. They would be paying you Rs. 30 thousand only and will incur a loss of Rs 5 thousand for each surgery. Very soon all of your patients will be coming to you through them. Once they have created this monopoly, they will start squeezing you and will continue to squeeze you till they bring you to CGHS rates. This way they will control all the nursing homes in the country without actually owning them. The doctor owners of the nursing homes will be at the mercy of these giant digital disrupters. By this time they would rechristen themselves as Digital Organizers. They would have disrupted the existing order and would now create a new order in which they will be the Lords and you will be their slave. You would be slogging for 12-14 hours doing 6-7 surgeries a day and earning Rs. 15,000 for each day of work. This way you would still be earning Rs. 4-5 lacs per month but the fee per surgery would be Rs. 2-3 thousand. All the consumer court and other criminal liability will still be on your head. Every day you would think of shooting yourself in the same head. If you wake up even now still the water has not gone over your head. These digital disrupters have grown pretty big but they are still not in a dominating position. Even if you start a fightback now, you can surely defeat them. Learn from the doctors of Rajasthan and the farmers of North India. The Fightback Protect your brand – Your market is not very big. For most of the nursing homes and specialist doctors it is around 5-10 km of area around their clinic / hospital. Create an effective digital presence. Create a patient centric digital identity and not hospital centric. Hire a digital team which is medically literate and not an IT team which doesn’t know how to spell Gastroenterology or Endocrinology. Spend atleast 2-3 % of your annual revenue on Search Engine Optimization. Focus on keywords related to the services provided by you. Train your Staff – The staff at most of the nursing homes is poorly trained in patient communication and consumer behaviour. Training the staff in providing 360 degree solutions to the patients should be the foremost priority for the doctors and hospital owners. Get off the Back of Digital Disrupters – Immediately get off the platforms of these digital disrupters. Terminate any agreements which you have made with them. Do not use their software for any work which compromises the demographic or medical details of your patients. Stop offering discounts to the patients which come through them.