[Startup Bharat] Lyflink wants to make healthcare delivery smooth and accessible in small towns

The coronavirus pandemic woke India up to the need for better healthcare infrastructure and increase in number of doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers.

Aware that digital disruption can play a pivotal role in ensuring healthcare delivery across the country, Dr Sarthak Patnaik founded Bhubaneswar-based telemedicine startup Lyflink in 2017 with Tushar Patnaik, Kamini Parmar, and Harish Kumar.

The venture was conceptualised by Dr Sarthak, Founder, CEO, and an orthopaedic specialist keen to ensure proper healthcare access in Odisha. Tushar and Harish are engineers involved in the technical aspects of the platform, while Kamini, an MBA, takes care of the financial aspects.

Speaking to YourStory, Co-founder Tushar says Lyflink is a telemedicine startup that allows users to get access to teleconsultations through video, audio, and chat via its website or mobile app.

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Making healthcare accessible

Tushar says the startup offers two mobile applications: the Lyflink Patient app, which is used by patients to search doctors and book appointments, and the Lyflink Doctor app that enables doctors to manage appointments, patients, and clinics.

Patients can search and choose a doctor from across the country, select the preferred mode of consultation, upload health reports, describe their issues, pay the consultation fees online, and connect with the doctor.

Tushar explains that Lyflink partners with diagnostic centres where patients are referred for tests during teleconsultations. These diagnostic centres automatically update results on the apps, allowing the doctor and the patient to take the treatments further.

“The application allows doctors to store and access patient data, prescriptions etc securely. Apart from this, patients can also ask questions about their health to a panel of doctors for free, prior to consultation,” he adds.

The Startup Odisha-recognised company is also setting up digital clinics in rural areas where it is working with health kiosks. At present, four digital clinics have been set up across Odisha in Saintala, Binka, Begunia and Surya Nagar. 

“As a part of the digital clinic initiative, health kiosk workers will be equipped with the mobile application and laptop to connect patients with the doctors. Consumers can reach out to the nearest kiosk and seek online medical attention immediately,” he says.

Lyflink also works with medicine store owners. Generally, big medicine store owners have doctor rooms for consultations as well. The startup is empowering medicine store owners to enable consultations using the application. Users can reach out to the store and the owners can connect them to doctors online.

“This will ensure increased consultations for us and sale of medicines for shop owners,” Tushar says.

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Plans for the future

According to the co-founder, Lyflink services are at present mostly used across Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Patna, Bengaluru, and Pune. He claims the startup, which has 15 team members, has more than 50,000 registered patients and 300 doctors across India.

“Our business model includes a subscription plan where doctors listing themselves on the platform need to pay a fee of Rs 500 plus taxes per month. Apart from this, a part of the consultation fee is deducted by the company as a commission for connecting them to patients,” Tushar says.

Lyflink is completely bootstrapped, and the co-founders have invested around Rs 25 to 30 Lakh for scaling up its operations. The startup is now planning to look for external funding to scale.

A 2019 report by McKinsey Global Institute, ‘Digital India: Technology to transform a connected nation,' states that if telemedicine services replace 30 to 40 percent of in-person consultations in India, coupled with digitisation in the overall healthcare industry, the country can save up to $10 billion by 2025.

The telemedicine and teleconsultation segment has several notable brands such as Practo, 1MG, mfine, Lybrate etc. Apart from this, Bengaluru-based Meta16Labs is also focused on providing digital clinics and telemedicine services in rural and semi-urban areas.

Speaking about future plans, Tushar says Lyflink plans to launch its medicine delivery app Dava Dena this Dussehra. This will allow patients to connect to nearby medicine stores, place orders, and get doorstep delivery.