Telemedicine firm Doctor On Call, which helps connect patients with doctors and hospitals, is looking to expand its operations in the country with a target of 10 lakh subscribers by the end of next year, a top company official said.
The Gurugram-based firm, which caters to patients in Tier II and Tier III towns, has witnessed rapid growth amid the coronavirus pandemic and has an active subscriber base of around one lakh people in the country.
Doctor On Call rolled out the Swasthya Sewa initiative in July this year which offers doctor consultation to patients over a call for all kinds of ailments. The subscribers need to pay Rs 500 for a family as annual subscription fee to avail the company”s services.
The company follows two models to cater to its subscribers. For complex ailments it has tie-ups with hospitals and specialist doctors and in order to cater to regular health issues of the subscribers, the company has around 15 doctors on its rolls.
In an interaction with PTI, Doctor On Call Co-Founder Karan Chopra said with various tie-ups in place, the company is now working towards enhancing the hospitalisation experience of its subscribers by upgrading facilities at some of its partner hospitals so that they do not have to travel to bigger cities.
Besides, the company is in the process of setting up a diagnostics vertical which would be operational in the next 2-3 months, he noted.
“We are aiming that in the next 2-3 years we should have a 10 million active subscriber base. We are targeting to have at least a million active subscribers by 2021-end,” Chopra said when asked about the business outlook.
On revenues, he said the startup has done half a million dollar business till now since starting the initiative in July.
“We should reach USD 1 million by this fiscal end. Over the next 2-3 years we will be on the course to do around USD 10 million a year,” Chopra said.
The company is cash positive and making money right now, he added.
Chopra said Doctor On Call is focussing on smaller towns for growth and currently caters to subscribers in 150 towns across nine states including, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Bihar, among others.
In case of regular health issues, the patient can consult a prescription from the doctor on the call. Besides, the company has tie-ups with around 400 hospitals where a patient can go and the doctor can then connect over a video call with a specialist from a big city hospital.
In case of very serious ailments, where the patient needs to see a specialist doctor in a city, the company has tied up with 10-15 hospitals in the initial phase.
