In an interaction with Wellness India, Sachin Chaudhary, Founder and CEO, Medical Second Opinion (MSO), shares his views about his entrepreneurial journey, challenges faced, milestones achieved and his future plans to make quality healthcare available to everyone, everywhere on a click.
Tell us in detail about Medical Second Opinion.
Medical Second Opinion (MSO) is a healthcare company to address growing requirements for ‘Second Opinion’. At MSO, we offer exclusive aggregation of finest doctors and hospital providers from India and abroad. Patients who have been diagnosed for any tertiary level procedure/ surgery/ medical intervention seek a second opinion before they undergo the procedure.
MSO was incepted in 2012 as an innovative online portal catering to the medical and second opinion needs in a cost-effective and pro-active manner. The idea was based on observations made while growing up in the small town of Haridwar and a decade of work experience in the healthcare industry in leading research and IT giants in India and across the world. I wanted to bridge the gap that lay between a common man in Tier 2 and 3 cities and basic quality healthcare by leveraging technology that is available to us.
Since the best doctors in India predominantly live in metropolitan cities, patients have to travel the distance spending money, time and a lot of effort to simply consult the doctor. Doctors in India too are genuinely looking for solutions to improve healthcare facilities in India. We provide solutions to discovery of leading doctors to the right patients, generating access from any part of the country or abroad and while doing so, saving cost and energy of the sick patient.
What challenges did you face at the time of starting?
The main challenge that we faced was to get the right doctors agree to be a part of the idea. The process took longer time then. But once we got the big names on our side, things started getting smooth and the process quickened.
What is MSO's revenue model?
MSO works as a virtual hospital following the model of a hospital network. Thus, revenue comes from professional share to ensure promotional activities. MSO witnesses a lot of patients traveling to India through our channel to visit doctors. While in the country, MSO ensures complete medical assistance directly with the doctors and charge the facilitation costs. The company makes more money on the consultation share from doctors.
Revenue is also generated from the yearly memberships to Freedom Health Cards – our discount cards on medical bills at leading hospitals. The commercial product was recently announced in Jaipur. We also create revenue from our corporate wellness schemes with corporate clients – enables bulk signups while ensuring maintenance and service charges.
Do you have any fund raising plans in future?
MSO intends to raise $5m in the next six months to fund the expansion and support the growth. We are considered and evaluated by a few leading VC/PE for series-A funding. Around 10-15 per cent of it will go into technology, 30 per cent on manpower, 40 per cent on the promotion and 10 per cent on acquisition.
What are the other offerings that you are planning to come up with in future?
While we plan to keep the number of services being offered as they are, more features, larger provider base, ease in interaction is going to be the target. For this, our immediate plan would be to introduce the facility of video and telephone conferencing to expand the scope of the offering. We also plan to expand our specialties, specialists within the specialty and participation of international doctors on the panel.
What is the revenue target that you are planning to reach after 5 years?
In our one year of operations, the turnover is close to Rs 1 crore. As we expand our service in under-served countries/markets, with empanelling doctors from potentially strong markets, our target is to reach Rs 1,000 crore globally.
