Nowadays, modern neighbourhood clinic chains offer family health care services and 24 x 7 medical assistance to the patients in their vicinity.

 

 

A typical clinic consists of general physicians (GPs), some specialist doctors, nurses, pharmacies, and diagnostic tests offered under one roof. Often, an e-records database assists the medical practitioner to easily track a patient’s medical history for future consideration.

 

Robust Primary Healthcare Infrastructure Is An Unmet Need

 

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India estimated that the Indian healthcare market may grow to US$280 billion (INR19.1 lakh crores) by 2020. A major area of opportunity is to address the inadequate number of primary healthcare providers in the country.

 

Shortage of primary healthcare providers compels patients to turn to hospitals for routine illnesses like viral infections, blood pressure treatments, etc. — compounding the monetary burden on patients as hospital visits are more expensive and time-consuming than a visit to a neighbourhood doctor.

 

Hence, institutional investors such as Norwest Venture Partners, Samaa Capital, and Bamboo Finance are stepping up investments in neighbourhood healthcare chains sprouting across the country.

 

For example, in 2015, Bangalore-based AddressHealth, a network of school-based neighbourhood clinics raised US$1.5 million series A funding from Grey Matters Capital for expansion across Bangalore and other cities to triple their patient base by 2018.

 

Win-Win for Patient Health And Healthcare Economics

 

As proclaimed by Garth Manning, CEO of the World Organization of Family Doctors, primary health care is the foundation of any health care system. Secondary and tertiary care should bolster primary care and not be an alternative for it. GPs also serve as early detectors of disease onset, consequently providing timely treatment plus preventing disease progression and complications.

 

For instance, early detection of diabetes at the pre-diabetes stage by a GP may result in non-intrusive management strategy such as lifestyle modifications and prevent complications that require intensive treatment (insulin injections or other medications).

 

According to a statement made by Arnab Mukherji, Assistant Professor at the Center for Public Policy at the IIM Bangalore for the online portal LittleIndia.com, “General practitioners and family physicians cost less to train and provide appropriate care for many types of diseases. National Sample Survey data shows that lifestyle diseases as well maternal and childcare needs are the key sources of demand in India today — these can be very competently handled by general practitioners and family physicians.”

 

The GPs benefit because they establish a practice without the expense of setting up a personal clinic. Doctors and nurses receive training programs, an early goal of Nationwide Primary Healthcare, about medical developments that can update their skills on a regular basis.

 

AddressHealth, Modern Family Doctor, HealthSpring, Aster, Health India Clinics, and Healthskool are some of the major players in this marketplace. However, big-name hospitals such as Apollo, Columbia Asia, and Fortis are competitively targeting this market by adding super speciality healthcare services to their neighbourhood GP clinics.

 

Success And Setbacks

 

Expansion plans of the GP clinics include adding new services and clinics. The expansion plans offer some insight into the success of such clinics. For example, HealthSpring has served over 3,50,000 patients since 2010 through its current network of 30 clinics. On one hand, several GP clinics are opening new clinics at a fast pace e.g. in 2015, Modern Family Doctor announced plans to expand from 51 to 300 clinics across the country. On the other hand, some of the early pioneers have shut down clinics and halted expansion plans for unknown reasons.

 

Our exploration of this marketplace shows that most of these neighbourhood GP chains are sprouting in big metros such as Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai, and Delhi-NCR. The high number of migrants in these metros do not have access to their hometown family doctors — and may not be able to identify “good” GPs — are more likely to reach out to branded clinics which hold the promise of high-quality healthcare.

 

Learn more about this topic:

1. Family Physicians Make a Comeback in India
2. Indian Healthcare Market Size