Practo: Connecting Patients with Trusted Doctors Nationwide

Vision for Accessible and Affordable Healthcare

Practo is the fastest-growing healthcare software platform in connecting patients with healthcare professionals. Its vision is to make quality healthcare accessible and affordable for more than a billion Indians. It powers users with truthful and holistic health information to make informed decisions. It hosts a medical directory, online appointment scheduling for doctors, telemedicine, health plans, laboratory tests at home, and medicine delivery.

Software for practice management is also provided to clinics and hospitals. Practo’s Digital Health Platform was believed to build a relationship of trust, transparency, and strong bonding between a doctor and his patient. That would ensure the continuity of care for better health outcomes.

Founding and Global Presence

Practo is an end-to-end digital healthcare platform, founded in the year 2008 by Shashank ND and Abinav Lal. It currently has a presence that spans over 15 countries, connecting patients with health professionals for services ranging from appointment bookings to online consultations and medicine delivery.

Practo has successfully built its presence in the health technology segment through a network of more than 200,000 registered health experts and partnerships with more than 10,000 hospitals.

Key Features and Services

• Practo: Firstly Practo, in its user-friendly way, enables the search for doctors in every field of practice and also availing an appointment at one’s convenience.
• Online Consultation: This feature allows a user to remotely consult with a doctor via the Internet. It has found a lot of demand among those people who want to seek a quick consultation without bothering to visit the clinic.
• Medicine Delivery: It offers its users to order medicines online with just an upload of a prescription. Orders are serviced through its own network of verified and trusted pharmacies.
• Diagnostic Services: Practo associates with diagnostic labs and facilitates home sample collection for tests, thereby making healthcare more accessible.
• Practice Management Software: Moreover, Tools such as “Ray“, a practice management software for clinics, and “Insta“, a hospital management solution, fall under the suite of offerings from Practo that help smoothen the operational flow of health providers.

Business Model

• The business model features a complex structure that includes several aspects:
  • Subscription fees
  • Consultation charges
  • A share from the revenue of medicine and diagnostic services
• Practo has raised substantial funding, around $228.2 million, from investors like Google Capital and Sequoia Capital. These funds support:
  • Its expansion plans
  • Service enhancements
• Taken together, Practo aims to:
  • Simplify health care
  • Unify the health ecosystem
  • Allow greater access and affordability of quality health care for consumers

How does Practo’s subscription-based health plan work? 

Practo Plus is a digital health plan in which one can have unlimited online consultations from up to 20 specialties of doctors. Here are some key features of what Practo Plus plan offers:

• Unlimited Consultations: Get to consult from over 30,000 doctors across over 20 specialties with Practo Plus without any extra fee being incurred in the process.
• 24/7 Access: In addition, This plan offers access to doctors during the day or night, which can be very useful in any emergency or for follow-up on regular health issues.
• Economical: Starting from an affordable INR 399 per month, Practo Plus is designed and framed to save your money on healthcare and help you avoid the high costs of individual consultations.
• Extra Perks: Furthermore, As if the above perks are not reason enough, you also get up to 10 free in-clinic visits as part of this subscription. Along with this, there are free health check-up packages and quicker appointments to the best doctors.

Subscription Strategy Available:  Subscription to the Practo Plus plans is available in flexible manners—monthly, quarterly, and yearly—so that you can simply choose one as per the convenience of your time and pocket.

Since the arrival of Practo Plus, people have increased the frequency of contacting doctors and many were reaching out three times more than before. Consequently, this simply means that people sought professional advice most of the time, rather than trying to self-medicate. As a result, this leads to better health outcomes.

In simple words, Practo Plus makes availability and affordability simpler, as it makes it easy for people and families to have responsibilities for their health in a better way.

How does Practo ensure the quality of doctors listed on their platform

Practo ensures the quality of doctors on their platform through several key steps:

• Medical License Check: Practo verifies each doctor’s medical registration to ensure they are properly qualified. Doctors must provide their government-issued photo ID, MCI registration number, and medical degree copies.
• Degree Validation: Practo uses a detailed “Bluebook” to confirm that doctors’ specializations match their qualifications. This Bluebook, created with input from senior doctors and regulatory bodies, helps verify that doctors are accurately representing their expertise.
• Real Patient Reviews: Practo features genuine feedback from verified patients on each doctor’s profile. This helps new patients make informed choices based on others’ experiences.
• Credentialing Process: Doctors are carefully vetted based on their medical history, experience, and patient feedback. Practo looks at their track record and patient reviews to ensure they meet high standards of care and professionalism.

By following these thorough checks, Practo’s Digital Health Platform ensures that patients have access to skilled and trustworthy doctors.

Conclusion 

• In conclusion, Practo has successfully disrupted healthcare by:
  • Providing a seamless platform for connecting patients to doctors
  • Making quality care more accessible and affordable
• It has used technology to enhance how people:
  • Book appointments
  • Get consultations
  • Order medicines
• Practo’s initiatives include:
  • Practo Assured—a quality commitment through tie-ups with top professionals and institutions in healthcare
  • Innovations and expansions into Tier 2 cities, aiming to bridge the healthcare gap
• Looking ahead, Practo’s Digital Health Platform plans to:
  • Enhance services
  • Increase its reach
• Ultimately, trust, quality, and technology developments will likely lead Practo to the forefront of healthcare, not just in India but globally.

Written by – Lavanya