Practo partners with ICICI Lombard to launch insurance app IL TakeCare

Sequoia and Tencent-backed healthtech company Practo, along with ICICI Lombard General Insurance, on Wednesday, announced it had launched health insurance app, IL TakeCare.

The app works as a one-of-its-kind solution and covers outpatient expenses of customers. The ‘IL TakeCare’ application works in sync with Practo’s ‘Trinity’ technology, allowing customers to make cashless visits to doctors, including those who operate stand-alone clinics.

The app allows users to book a network diagnostics centre for medical tests, and receive results on the app, which automatically becomes an online repository of medical records. Customers can also buy medicines at discounted rates, and pick them from a medical store or have them delivered at home.

Shashank ND, Co-founder and CEO, Practo says,

“Practo has been working towards simplifying the healthcare experience for consumers. Today, we are launching our Trinity technology to help patients get a paperless and cashless consultation experience at neighbourhood clinics. It will also help the doctor community provide a better, more seamless experience to their patients. Trinity is an important step in our efforts to build a connected healthcare platform. We are delighted to partner with ICICI Lombard to bring Trinity technology to their customers.”

What does it do?

IL TakeCare facilitates real-time viewing of personal health records (PHRs) as well as benefits, billings, and transactions for service providers. It comes with a one-time password (OTP) for all transactions through mobile or email, and provides multiple access points for family members. The solution will be made available to customers with due consent from the regulator.

Apart from this, the Trinity technology will also help patients get cashless and a paperless experience for everyday healthcare needs like medicine purchase, online consults, diagnostic tests, and doctor visits.

With this integration into IL TakeCare, a customer can visit any ICICI Lombard-empaneled clinic on Practo’s provider network by booking appointments through the app, or just walking into a clinic. The system will recognise them automatically, and verify the transaction to improve transparency.

Trinity enables transfer of structured digital prescriptions from doctors to help ICICI Lombard identify prescribed tests, treatments and medicines, which facilitates real-time adjudication of claims, and will ensure periodic settlement for doctors. With Trinity, doctors and clinics across the country can accept ICICI Lombard Insurance through Practo’s software platform.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance MD & CEO Bhargav Dasgupta said in a statement,

“At ICICI Lombard, we are focused on introducing innovative solutions that make life easy for our customers. Our ‘IL TakeCare’ app is a step forward in this direction and caters to a large and currently neglected aspect of healthcare - outpatient expenses towards consultation, diagnostics and medicines. With this unique solution, we are addressing a critical need of customers to avail affordable outpatient facilities and treatment.”

Why health insurance

The team at Practo believes that over the years, there is increased penetration, and new models of service delivery are driving the Indian health insurance industry, which is poised to reach Rs 500 billion by 2021 at a CAGR of 20 percent.

Shashank adds that the lack of outpatient coverage is a major inhibiting factor for growth, with two-third of medical expenses classified as out of pocket. As per estimates, standalone outpatient care in terms of size would be six times of the current health insurance market.

Drugs, diagnostics, consultations and tests primarily constitute out-of-pocket-expenses. In India, outpatient expenses are met through personal income and savings, raising the issue of ability of OPD patients to pay for various medical services.

Practo so far

Practo raised its last round of Series D funding of $55 million in January last year. The total funding raised by Practo is $179 million. The round was led by Tencent and three new investors - ru-Net, RSI Fund (owned by Recruit Capital) and Thrive Capital. Existing investors, including Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners, Capital G (Google Capital), Altimeter Capital, and Sofina, participated in the round.

Practo, which was more a doctor-consulting and a SaaS (software-as-a-service) platform for doctors, in four months of fund-raising, rebranded itself as a complete healthcare platform that focuses on appointments, consultations, health records and insurance.

In 2016, Practo had expanded into the Latin American market by venturing into Brazil and Shashank says they saw a 60 percent increase in appointment bookings internationally. Practo, over 2015 and 2016, had expanded to Southeast Asia.

Currently, the maximum chunk of Practo’s revenue comes from its B2B segment, which doctors use. More than 20 percent of the revenue comes from the international markets.

Shashank added that the startup saw 80 percent growth in appointment booking, and 90 percent growth in patients coming on the platform. The team believes the company will break even in some parts of the international markets soon.

Over last year, Practo saw a 116 percent growth in patients visiting the platform, 81 percent more appointments, and 157 percent growth in reviews on the platform.

It also saw seven million records shared on Practo Drive, and a 150 percent growth in online consultations on Practo with 60 percent more enterprise customers, 114 percent growth in patients internationally, and 129 percent growth in international appointments. The company is also targeting medicine delivery in the top seven cities by May this year.

Over the past two years, the healthcare segment has seen significant players. Be it Sequoia-backed 1mg, Tiger-backed Lybrate, Netmets, Matrix-backed Myra, Bessemer-backed PharmEasy, the consultation, and online pharmacy space is fast growing in the country.