New Delhi, Delhi May 20, 2018 (Issuewire.com) - Back in 2015, Mr Kimotho a 60-year-old retired Kenyan was suffering from liver cancer. He required a life-saving liver transplant surgery which unfortunately was not available in his country. He decided to search for information on top Indian liver transplant hospitals and was bitterly disappointed to find cluttered and non-credible information. Each of the top hospital results claimed they had the best liver transplant program. The information was extremely inadequate and there were no genuine reviews of the hospitals or the transplant teams. He rued not coming across a single, unbiased source of information.
MedMonks is that source!!!!
“Being doctors, we understood well the information international patients required to make the right choice. They wanted to know about the doctors, the hospitals’ clinical programs, the treatment options, the technology used and specific useful reviews. And, not just of one hospital, but of many. We decided to provide them exactly that as we felt the power of choice should lie with the patients” – Dr Gautam Sethi
Medmonks has tie-ups with over 500 hospitals and 50,000 doctors. The patients can read about the accreditation of the hospitals, the key specialities, the infrastructure, the clinical programs, the doctors and their profiles. Most importantly, the patients can read how their fellow countrymen who visited India earlier reviewed these hospitals and doctors.
“Very early in our business, we realised the importance of reviews. People from different nationalities had different definitions of a perfect medical journey. For some, the cost was the most important factor, for some it was the service. We also knew how hospitals had different areas of strength; some were excellent in cardiology and some in neurology. It was a natural choice to provide patients’ access to speciality and nationality wise reviews” – Dr ShubeshTyagi
Medmonks platform gets visitors from over 70 countries, and the company so far has served patients from over 54 countries. Other than the information that helps the patient choose the best hospital and doctor for them, Medmonks’ travel desk and on-ground support help patients with all logistic arrangements. It helps them with the medical visa, air-tickets, budget hotels near the hospitals, free translation services, etc.
“Despite the focus on technology, we knew service would always play a pivotal role in healthcare. Travelling to another country for medical treatment is always a major decision. Hospitals can never match 5-star hotels in hospitality as their bread and butter is clinical care. We realized that patients always require someone to represent them to the hospitals. Medmonks is that representation. It always helps to know that you have someone with you when you visit a hospital in another country.” – Dr Priyank Tyagi
Medmonks medical operations team ensures each patient gets an oversight for their respective clinical course in the hospital of their choice. Apart from ensuring timely and personalised medical services, the ops team also steps in when there is a change in the treatment plan or discrepancy in the promised services and costs. Our protocols safeguard the interests of our patients at all times throughout their medical journey.
The challenges of setting up and scale?
Passion fuels with Crossing Hurdles
All three of the co-founders were at senior management posts in one of the World’s largest chains of hospitals and hence quitting their cushy job was a big step.
Three doctors setting up a technology-driven firm wasn’t a cake walk.
Medical Tourism is an unorganised sector driven by translators and students came as a prominent hurdle in our way too.
How did we overcome the challenges?
Our families were from the business background and hence we had it in us to go the extra mile and take risks pertaining to setting-up and expanding our business. Entrepreneurship is in our blood!
We roped in a technology consultant who helped us sail through and overcome the technical challenges of establishing our business. We later hired a full-time tech lead to make sure that our tech vision wasn’t lost.
We built an efficient operations team and drafted strong SOP’s which helped us manage our patients in a standardised manner. For overcoming the language barrier across countries, we recruited professional translators.
The Eureka moment and notion behind MedMonks
An Idea Born to Save Lives
Medmonks is a story of how three doctors collaborated to come up with something extraordinary in the healthcare sector– a start-up of their own.
The three of us were very good buddies in Apollo, working and heading different departments of the hospital. While being in our cushy jobs; we witnessed thousands of international patients who were in the dearth of right medical assistance and healthcare services.
We realised that it is an uphill task for international patients to seek suitable medical treatment. This problem was compounded by the existence of unorganized players; delivering genuine medical assistance to patients was the need of the hour. The patients who came to India for treatment were duped by insensitive middlemen and were being referred to unethical practitioners. That was a eureka moment for us, where MedMonks came into existence. Every patient deserves the right care, delivering which is the mission of MedMonks. The sector, which is run chiefly by unorganised players, had to be consolidated.
And with this commitment to help patients, Medmonks was born. The notion of choosing that name was to make it a smooth experience for patients travelling to India for medical treatment. We believed that we would make a huge positive impact in assisting international patients because we had witnessed the struggle patients underwent while seeking treatment in a foreign country. After exhaustive brainstorming and dissecting each other’s opinions, we zeroed in on a web platform catering to the medical tourists.
The idea was absolutely fresh and highly promising as there was hardly anyone in this domain. There were a few start-ups in other countries, but then their services were tailor-made for different markets. Envisioned to establish a scalable business around the notion, we streamlined the idea and executed it into a platform that would provide all the information to patients across the globe under one shed.
MedMonks and its Assets
Though we immediately found solid foreign business partners, we were careful while building the in-house team, also because we were bootstrapping. In fact, we did not hire a single full-time resource for the first year of our operations! In the last one year, Medmonks has grown from a team of 4 to a very efficient bunch of 20 people comprising IT professionals; doctors, executives and translators.
Who are we?
Dr Gautam Sethi (alumni of IIM Indore), 31-year-old was heading Apollo’s Maternity Hospital. He has also played a pivotal role in establishing telemedicine services.
Dr Priyank Tyagi, 35-year-old was directly involved in a strategic course of the organization and day-to-day operations of the hospital working with Managing Director and was a part of senior management core team.
Dr Shubesh Tyagi, 34-year-old was heading the Apollo’s international marketing foray into Russia CIS and Eastern European Markets. Dr Shubesh did his MBBS from Russia; which was thus an added advantage for understanding the market.
Revenue, traction, and growth from the date of inception till now
We have delivered services to 3000+ patients till date generating a business of 8 cr. In 2018, our month-to-month growth has been an attractive 40 %.
What is the one thing that sets you apart from your competitors and what's your revenue model?
Being doctors in one of India’s largest chains of hospitals and understanding the patient and their illness very closely, we had developed a knack for caregiving. Today, various medical tourism platforms have emerged but what makes us exclusive from others is that we are doctors turned professional healthcare executives envisioned in bringing a positive change in patient’s lives. Our aim is to make a platform that is so efficient and seamless, that it makes our existence redundant.
Revenue model: We charge a small amount from the hospitals for dispensing services to international patients. For some countries, we charge a small fee for the patients against high-quality services.
How are we funded?
When there is a gush in the Soul and Heart to make a change, Funds ain’t a worry!
MedMonks has always been given multiple opportunities, and many reputed investors have shown interest. We were offered the highest amount of funding in i5 Summit, an annual start-up event of the IIM Indore calender. We got a direct entry to The Vault show (an investment show for start-ups aired on Times Now and ET Now), where we were offered to fund of $400,000. Eventually, we decided we would be better off raising a smaller amount of $100,000 focusing on consolidating operations and strengthening our online platform, which we did from the investment division of Nuberg Chemicals, one of the biggest EPC players in the World.
How does the product work? How does the platform work?
Moving Beyond our Product: Giving Patients’ a Real Chance at Life
Medmonks is a platform that makes medical travel smarter and better. A recent study by International Healthcare Research Center pegs Medical Tourism industry at 439 billion dollars which would touch an astronomical 3 trillion dollars by 2025. Every year over 12 million people travel to foreign destinations to avail medical treatment. Reasons range from lack of availability of care in their country to the care available not being affordable. Medical travellers face two major problems: information gap and service gap. They often face this dilemma over which country or hospital to go to. Many times they are confused over the treatment options and the cost comparisons. Even if they land up at a clinically good hospital, the service levels can be disappointing.
Medmonks resolve these issues by providing just the information they require and the service they deserve. At the medmonks platform, patients can compare destinations, verified hospitals, treatment options, technology, cost, previous patients' feedback and much more. This is supported by a highly efficient guest relations team led by experienced physician executives to make sure that the patients make an informed choice and are served well throughout their medical journey. Medmonks has chosen India as the first destination country for its class-leading CAGR of 44% (compared to the industry growth rate of 18%) and provision of the most high-end clinical services. The platform plans to add top five medical travel destinations in two years' time vastly increasing our target population.
The product is running on a robust search algorithm that fuels the user search results delivering personalised results as close as possible to real-time recommendations. Each search query takes in to account the nuances that make informed decisions for our users a reality. The algorithm is powerful and effective due to the in-depth healthcare experience, access to quality performance parameters and use of data that is publically available on identified key parameters.
For a potential medical traveller, where the custom algorithm takes care of discovery (providing relevant and quality healthcare options); verified patient reviews help them decide. The reviews capture all salient aspects of a patient’s medical experience. We plan to power these reviews with a smart algorithm too. The cumulative score and effective draw of each review is determined by a number of parameters which ensure the results are unbiased yet holding their own persona. This ensures that people belonging to a same culture or region can easily relate to the reviews of their peers and can decide on their healthcare providers.
Our future plans
Surpassing our Visions for Bringing Peace to Patients across the Globe
Our future plans and prospects are inclined towards adding more medical tourism destinations other than India – Singapore, Thailand, Germany and Dubai, and simultaneously building a much-needed proposition for the domestic Indian market.
MedMonks as of today has become one of the fastest growing healthcare platforms for quality quaternary and tertiary treatment in India.
Media Contact
MedMonks Medicare Pvt. Ltd. medmonks@gmail.com +91-7683088559 706, Pearls Business ParkNetaji Subhash Place, Pitampura https://medmonks.com/
