1) Founders
Amit Sharma and Kapil Chadha.
Before starting their venture, the duo had worked across several industries and had decades of experience in healthcare and health insurance.
2) The Trigger
"In healthcare, the clinical and business sides have always thrived. But little has been done to improve customer experience. Even now, most people do not know how to access quality and affordable solutions. Medical tourism is a good option, but you need to know everything about treatments, procedures, facilitators and costs to make it work. Since India is emerging as the go-to hub for healthcare, we wanted to push this advantage and launch a platform to connect all stakeholders, with focus on technology and transparency," says Sharma.
3) The Business
eExpedise Healthcare is one of the few NABH-accredited operators in India. It follows a two-tier business model - a B2B format to partner with health insurance companies, third-party assurance services and hospitals and a B2C online interface to help patients manage the entire life cycle of the medical tour. "It is done in four stages," explains Sharma. The company has an AI-powered CRM in place so that people searching for treatments can get the best options and compare costs. In the pre-hospitalisation stage, the company helps them connect with doctors, discuss their cases and book everything. It also handholds them throughout hospitalisation and post-hospitalisation phases (travel support, hospital stay, documentation and more) to ensure a seamless experience. "Besides, our doctors review their medical bills to make sure there is no overcharging," says Sharma.
The company started its operations with a campaign called Home Country Treatment and targeted NRIs but soon on-boarded non-NRI patients from West Asia, South-east Asia and the EU (Germany and the UK). It is also tying up with corporate houses and ministries who want to pay for their employees' healthcare. Revenue comes from the B2B part of the business as the start-up collects a service fee from insurance companies and a marketing fee from network hospitals on per-case basis. For all other stakeholders, the service is free.
4) Future Plans
Growth is the keyword now and the bootstrapped start-up is looking to raise funding. In the next one year, eExpedise is planning to enter another 25 countries (they are already operating in 26), double its revenue and bring on board ayurvedic and other traditional wellness treatments which have a big following in the West.