See how UberHealth can make life easy for NRIs
‘We care for those who care for you.’ This is the slogan of a company that should extract sighs of relief from NRIs around the world. Well, just the San Francisco Bay Area for now at least considering the large number of software engineers there who have old parents in India.UberHealth provides senior citizens preventive health care packages in Ludhiana and the Delhi NCR region. Ajay Pal Singh, Co-Founder and CMO of UberHealth, takes immense pride in the simplicity of UberHealth’s model. “The person has to just sign up for his parents, choose a service and pay by credit card. From there onwards we take care of everything, from booking appointments to picking up your parents from home to the hospital and bringing them back. The representative will sit in during the consultations to take notes and the doctor’s feedback. We then send all the reports online to the children so they can keep a track,” says Ajay. He adds, “Our representative will help them in getting the required medications or lab tests done, too!”
That’s an Uber-duper idea!
The Founders, Ishan Jha and Kamal Aggarwal along with Ajay noticed a rise in the number of young adults living away from home. In fact, they themselves were in the same boat while they were working in the US. “The problem is that children are living away from home nowadays, and they need to take care of their parents. A lot of friends used to discuss that they may have to travel home to tend to their sick parents. It was difficult to find a good service to ensure that their parents are taken care of,” explained Ajay. “In fact, when we started bouncing the idea for UberHealth among people around where we worked, it was an instant hit. We immediately got queries from people when they could start using the service.”What’s in it for the hospitals?
UberHealth has tied up with major hospitals to ensure top-notch service quality. No hospital has turned them down yet, which they are taking as a positive sign.
The fact is even hospitals stand to benefit with the partnership:
- The preventive health services are going to be provided by the hospitals, which translates to business being generated for them by UberHealth.
- It enables them to reach out to a larger section of people.
- There’s a sense of loyalty created in the minds of the users. Any future treatments for the NRIs or even their parents may be carried out in that particular hospital chain because they’ve had a prior experience with it.
Hah! Must be real expensive, right?
The preventive healthcare packages promise to be affordable.
For example, a simple doctor’s consultancy can cost as little as $30 which includes a full-fledged pick-up and drop service, appointment booking, online report uploading, etc. Medicines cost extra, since the amount is variable. The yearly packages are custom built so their costs vary anywhere between $200 and $500. All costs are inclusive of a service charge, with the rest going directly to the doctor or the hospital.
“We’ve been working on this concept for about six to seven months now, and we finally launch today, the 25th of April. Our primary marketing has been done via our NIT community, friends and family. We have also used social media and YouTube videos to spread awareness. We have spread our message extensively in the Bay Area since that was where we were based,” said Ajay. “See, preventive health is not an explored concept in India. We found it difficult to convince parents to tell their children to purchase these packages. It was much easier to speak to the children and explain to them the benefits of such health care. We’re also in the process of speaking with corporates to reach out their employees who are abroad or even in other states in India,” he adds.
But I have a family doctor
Some of the alternative options that people can exercise are to consult with their family doctors, or use services like Book-a-Doctor, or other Home Healthcare Services. “You see, the issue is these guys don’t provide preventive health care services. Our packages include check-ups and consultations to prevent ailments from getting the better of the patient, and out of hand. Besides, ours is a full-fledged service that includes getting the doctor,” stated Ajay.
UberHealth’s most immediate expansion plans are set for Hyderabad and Jalandhar. This is because a large number of NRIs they met in the Bay Area were from Hyderabad, and Ajay has noticed that a large number of families in Jalandhar have at least one member working or staying abroad. “We will slowly start expanding our service depending on how successful and stress-free our model is. However, our priority for now is to provide and maintain a top-notch service quality,” added Ajay.
Please let us know what you think of this service, in the comments section. Also, don't forget to take a deeper look at UberHealth!