Prevention first - Raipur-based startup offers preventive healthcare platform for the family
This article is part of The Chhattisgarh Story series
Founded in 2017, Mediklik functions as a family health buddy by providing preventive healthcare packages and primary care services.
At a glance
Startup: Mediklik
Founder: Vikram Aditya
Founded in: 2017
Where it is located: Raipur
Sector: Healthcare
Funding: Seed funding
The world has woken up to the importance of preventive care - healthcare that shifts the focus from treatment plans and medicines to wellness and maintaining good health.
In India, though, lack of preventive healthcare is one of the key issues the sector is grappling with. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, 25 percent of Indians may die of lifestyle diseases before they touch the age of 70. The worst part? Many of the factors that lead to these illnesses and premature deaths are preventable.
Vikram Aditya, who has been in the pharmaceutical space for over a decade, felt India needed to focus on preventive care. “During my 10-year stint as a pharmacist, several people would keep asking me for basic information on the right doctors, or on what could help prevent a cold or a viral infection,” says Vikram, whose grandfather is a doctor.
Vikram saw that people’s resistance towards preventive care was due to ignorance, lack of time, dependency, and the costs involved. It was to eliminate these four problems that Vikram decided to launch Mediklik, an online cloud-based patient engagement platform.
What does it do?
Vikram says the most crucial part of the treatment of any disease is that it “needs to be timely, precise, and needs a complete diagnosis, followed by a quest to find the right doctor to get the right treatment”.
He soon realised that getting to the right diagnosis, the right specialist, and the right treatment wasn’t easy in India.
Vikram and a friend (no longer a part of the startup) started Mediklix in 2017. The platform offers preventive healthcare packages that are tailored by medical experts to cater to every aspect of lifestyle improvement.
The Mediklik platform works as a source of health information, and offers details for searches, including symptoms, diseases, medicines, and more. It also has a network of over 500 healthcare partners like doctors, clinics, diagnostic centres, and labs.
Every information page shows a list of healthcare providers in the vicinity along with experts available for online consultation. A user who wishes to access any service needs to register, which is free, and s/he is motivated to take a free visit from the Mediklik team for assessment of his or her family health.
Plans on offer
A single family plan includes periodic health checkups, advance health assessments (including mental, emotional, and occupational assessments), complete health record digitisation, diet counselling and planning, online doctor support from a panel of experts (MD, gynaecologist, paediatrician, dermatologist, dietician, and fitness expert) for the entire year. The startup charges Rs 8,500 for an annual subscription for a family of four.
Special health plans for chronically ill patients are also available; they are priced at around Rs 16,000 per patient.
These facilities are supported and assisted by an AI-based virtual assistant that offers millions of pages of information on healthcare-specific data. Based on the health data shared, the assistant’s algorithm sifts through the data and gives out any necessary information and assistance. The assistant also keeps track of medicine, food and other reminders based on a patient’s profile. The data is used to supplement the information is taken only on user's consent.
Users receive a 100 percent cash-back on the package amount, which can be used while buying medicines, paying hospital bills, or getting lab tests from any of Mediklik’s health partner. The cashback is applicable only for the first usage.
All these effectively free-of-cost facilities are provided in the comfort of the user’s home - no waiting, no travel, and no dependency.
“It was December 2017 when we tried our current concept as a pilot by providing 10 selected families free services. They were so happy that they kept giving references and we got into the market, though we were not ready. We didn’t have the right resources, but we soon got an industrialist investor on board and got our first bulk corporate package booking,” Vikram says.
The team roped in Prashant Agrawal, who was working for UNICEF and Department of Child Welfare as a technical consultant at the time, as an advisor. Mediklik has a team of 15 people.
Growing industry
The pharma industry is currently pegged at $15 billion. Some of the issues that the sector faces include low fill rates, delivery delays, and expired and spurious medicines.
Despite the regulatory challenges, the space is growing significantly and main other players include Matrix Partners-backed Myra, Sequoia-backed Practo, Bessemer-backed Pharmeasy, and Sequoia-backed 1mg.
Mediklik claims to have made revenue of Rs 25 lakh so far.
“We have partnered with more than 40 big corporate and industries as their health provider. These include some of the biggest industrial groups in central India,” Vikram says.
In the near future, all content developed by the in-house team will be available in regional languages (they plan to begin with Hindi). The user will get a virtual assistant to keep track of activities, answer health queries, and connect him or her to doctors when required.
“This is already in Beta phase and is being used by few of our existing users. We believe this will provide us the bridge to reach those people in our country who need guidance and support for a healthier life but have limited access to facilities. At the time of launch of this new version we will also ensure that we are present in more than 10 cities with our extensive health partner network,” Vikram ends.