New Delhi-based healthcare fintech start-up, LetsMD is all set to expand its presence in five metro cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune by January 2018.
Set up by serial entrepreneurs- Nivesh Khandelwal, Prakhar Gupta, and Tenzin Thargay in December 2015, LetsMD helps users compare hospitals, look at doctor videos, compare pricing for their surgery and book an appointment at the hospital of their choice. It then gives the user an option of converting their surgery bill into an EMI at low interest.
Talking about vision behind starting LetsMD, Nivesh Khandelwal, founder of the company, said “The Indian healthcare system is facing two major problems requiring urgent solution. One is transparency in terms of pricing and quality and second is discovery of quality care providers. Hospitals operating in a specific region are often not discoverable to patients outside their catchment area. Even though insurance penetration is increasing, out of pocket expense is growing faster than it. There are certain treatments left uncovered by insurance companies, for instance, IVF, dental care are not covered by insurance. There is need for a platform integrating transparency, discovery and financing which help patients discover a service provider in their budget, finance their surgeries. It was the above lacunae that inspired us to start LetsMD.”
The company went live by January 2017. In Delhi NCR it has empaneled 300 hospitals including Fortis Healthcare, BLK Hospital and Apollo Hospitals. IVF was the first medical procedure which went live on its platform a couple of months back. The healthcare fintech start-up will go live with 40 elective surgeries on its platform by the end of April 2017 including IVF, gynec procedures, cardiovascular surgery, pediatric, knee replacement, ophthalmology procedures, liver and kidney transplant etc. Currently it covers only IVF treatment. Around 1,000 super specialties doctors performing elective surgeries will be live by the end of April.
Patients undergoing surgeries at our empaneled hospitals are not required to pay interest rate. The hospitals treating them pay 6 to 9 per cent of total treatment cost to us as subvention fee. The amount of loan a patient can take depends on his credit profile, his bank statement, salary slips. LetsMD offers medical loan ranges from Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 5 lakh in an hour to 3 days, he said.
“Our aim is to facilitate about 5,000 surgeries in first year with a gross value of Rs. 50 crore. Our vision is to bring entire healthcare ecosystem comprising hospitals, finance companies, insurance and drug companies on our platform in long run. By next year we are planning to go live with oncology care”, said Khandelwal.
Till date, the company disbursed Rs. 20 lakh as medical loan to 100 patients undergoing IVF treatment. Initially two years, our focus is on patient financing. We are planning to go live with financing other players in healthcare ecosystem including doctors to upgrade their facility by 2019, he added.
The company is also planning to apply for NBFC licence to lend from its book. Currently it partners with several NBFCs including Arogya Finance, Bajaj Finserv, LoanTab, Rubik to disburse medical loan to patients.
80% of India's tertiary health hospitals are in 20 cities including Delhi NCR, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Jaipur, Lucknow and we will cover these 20 cities over the next three years and expand the surgery basket to a 100 elective procedures, he concluded.
Recently LetsMD closed a US$ 7,50,000 angel round from a clutch of prominent angel investors like Calcutta Angels, Waterbridge Ventures, Anupam Mittal. The capital is being used to develop the technology and scale up the team.