Among all other industries, if any sector is getting the most benefits out of on-demand economy, it is healthcare. Immediate provision of medical care to ones who are suffering makes this niche the most important as well as the most responsible. For someone who is not well and cannot go to the hospital, on demand healthcare services can enable instant appointment scheduling with doctor without leaving the house. Well, this is the reason this industry is booming at such faster pace. While there are various giants who are leading this sector, in this blog we will only focus on Indian healthcare startup, Practo.
How it started?
In 2008, Shashank ND faced a situation when he could not find enough information about a doctor, who was supposed to operate his father. It was a turning point in his life as he, along with his classmate Abhinav Lal, started with one of the greatest healthcare startups in India, Practo Technologies Pvt. Ltd. in Bangalore. Unlike other players in this vertical, Practo took it steady and in just a few years more than 10 million patients were created on the platform.
Practo Ray, a SAAS software was launched with an aim to simplify information access for all users. The software had to be robust and powerful and most importantly authentic because the entire patient data as well as hospital data are way too sensitive. One of the most important factors in Practo Ray’s success was that it did not use any third party tool or software for storing its data about doctors, hospitals and clinics. Thus, all that data was verified by Practo first and then uploaded on the database. With use of this software, doctors could schedule appointments, access patient records, manage prescriptions and manage other healthcare services. Additionally, to make healthcare search more refined the company launched its healthcare search engine Practo Search where doctors and patients could search about healthcare digitally.
How Practo Works?
Practo is one-stop solution for all healthcare needs of any patient. With seamlessly integrated platforms, Practo has three different stakeholders:
Patients
With Practo, patients or normal users can ask, find or consult about healthcare in a few easy steps.
Health Consultation
Practo lets patients enquire about any health problem by filling the required information that does not include any personal details of the user.
Practo Search
Patients can search for doctors, clinics/hospitals and laboratory at any location. Also, they can look for options that are nearby. Filters help in refining the list of doctors or clinics/hospitals on the basis of experience, speciality and availability.
Consult Doctor
Patients can choose free or paid consultation with doctors on various health problems. The platform ensures a response to every query, failing which results in a refund of money paid.
Order Medicines
Online ordering of medicines saves patients from running to different chemists, asking for their medicine. All the rarely available medicines can be ordered easily under this section.
Health Articles
An educated patient will always be aware of his health condition before the doctor. With an aim to spread awareness on healthcare, Practo has health articles on every topic.
Doctors
With Practo’s solutions for Doctors, it becomes simple to manage daily appointments and mark availability to see patients. Using the mobile and web solution, doctors are able to improve user engagement as well as retain them with new offers and health lessons.
Practo App for Doctors has three offerings; Practo Consult, Practo Health Feed and Practo Profile.
Doctors can create profiles and get listed in the healthcare database of Practo. There will be all details about experience, history and reviews. Based upon the profiles, patients connect with doctors to get consultation as well as treatment. Doctors can provide solution as per the patient’s condition. Also, prescriptions and reports are sent via application and can be accessed easily anytime in the phone.
Clinics & Hospitals
The major Practo SAAS software is Practo Ray and Practo Search. With Practo Ray, any hospital or clinic can achieve efficiency in handling daily hospital operations. The software can be installed at any hospital and the staff can use to schedule appointment, manage patient records and history, manage doctor database and manage transactions.
Practo Search lets you check about any hospital, clinic or doctor to ensure that you are consulting the right person. Hospitals that want to be featured on top can make use of Practo Reach Ads. Also, Practo Pro App enables the staff to manage their hospital appointments and schedules on the App itself.
Revenue Model of Practo
Acquisitions
Acquisitions is a great way to extend services into other verticals and earn that extra amount of money. Practo has been acquiring a lot of companies like Qikwell, FitHo, Genii and InstaHealth.
Practo Services
Practo Ray
Practice Management Software for doctors using which are able to manage their patient records, prescriptions, reports and everything else. It is similar to an ERP that doctors can use by paying a monthly recurring fee.
Practo Health Feed
A social network that is used by the doctors to share updates with patients who are following them. The platform is free to use but is used to promote the products or services that lead to the final buying decision of the customers.
Practo Consult
A platform that can provide answers to all your medical queries. Patients or other normal users can ask about any health problem and the doctors will reply to it within the given time.
Practo Profile
All doctors are listed in Practo Profile where you can find about the history and experience of any doctor you want. Booking an appointment becomes easy when patients get to see all the details about any doctor.
Practo Reach
Practo provides ad space for other health providers to advertise on the website as well as mobile app.
Practo Tab
For all the hospitals and clinics, Practo Tab enables feedback reviews
Medicine Delivery
Selling medicine to chemists and various drug stores is another revenue generation method for Practo.
Some modules might bring direct revenue while other modules help in getting indirect revenue. The main point is the company is earning very good and remains to be the top-most healthcare startup.
While, there are various other healthcare startups that are coming up with new solutions, Practo focuses on making healthcare more simpler to access without any discrepancy in data. The next disruption in healthcare is IOT and wearables. Know more about wearables in healthcare industry.
