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Modern Family Doctor, a Bengaluru startup that aims to bring back the concept of neighbourhood family doctors or general physicians, will increase its presence in smaller towns to provide primary care to patients.
The firm plans 300 clinics across India in three years, expanding from its current 51 in the two cities, Bengaluru and Pune. Modern Family Doctor plans to set up a round-the-clock call centre, too.
Modern Family Doctor aims to fill a gap that exists in the private sector, that of providing primary healthcare in smaller towns.
“The lack of good primary healthcare is very apparent in India because hospital outpatient departments are flooded with patients; 70 per cent of whose needs are primary in nature but they have no other option. Going to a hospital means travel, time, inconvenience, exposure to infections, and higher expense,” said Naresh Malhotra, Chief Executive Officer, Modern Family Doctor.
Malhotra is a serial entrepreneur who led India’s biggest coffee outlet chain Café Coffee Day as its chief executive till 2007.
India spends about 1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) on public health, compared to 3 per cent in China and over 8 per cent in the US. In the previous budget, the government had proposed Rs 29,700 crore as healthcare expenditure and this was higher by 2 per cent over the previous year.
This leaves a large population without access to quality healthcare and the gap is being filled by private equity players that are increasingly funding tertiary healthcare facilities, but ignoring primary healthcare.
Family Doctor outlets have one to two consultation rooms, a treatment room, reception and a pharmacy. These clinics are manned by one or two doctors, two nurses, two pharmacists and a receptionist.
The venture has an advisory board that reviews on request ethical or moral questions that may come up during a patient's care. The outlet also maintains electronic medical records of patients which are available even if the patient moves from one clinic to another.
Modern Family Doctor is competing with other startups like Wellspring Healthcare and Nationwide Primary Healthcare.
Modern Family Doctor, founded in 2011, received initial funding of $2 million (Rs 12 crore) from Saama Capital, earlier known as Silicon Valley Bank. In February 2014, it raised an additional $4 million, or Rs 24 crore, from the Luxembourg-based Bamboo Finance and Saama Capital. Modern Family Doctor is in discussions to raise another $5-10 million from private equity and venture capital firms.
“The affordable primary healthcare segment in India is highly underserved. This market needs combined with our long-standing relationship with Naresh and our strong belief that he and his team could build rapid scale were our drivers to incubate the company and be the first institutional investor here,” said Ash Lilani, managing partner, Saama Capital.
“We highly value the addition of Bamboo in this new round as a partner given their experience and knowledge of healthcare in the Indian market and look forward to working together to help the company through its next phase of growth,” he added.
Modern Family Doctor also plans to provide specialist services on specified days in the clinics, especially in the areas of obstetrics and gynecology, paediatrics, dermatology and physiotherapy. Along with increasing the network of referral facilities for speciality care and diagnostics, Modern Family Doctor plans to foray into telemedicine in India and abroad.
“We are very impressed with what Modern Family Doctor has achieved in such a short span of time to increase healthcare access in India.” said Eric Berkowitz, chief investment officer, Bamboo Finance.
Bamboo Finance was created to support commercially viable businesses that provide access to essential products and services to underserved communities and Modern Family Doctor fits well with our fund’s mission,” said Eric Berkowitz, chief investment officer, Bamboo Finance.
