Bajaj Finserv forays into digital healthcare solutions

After disrupting the consumer finance business, Sanjiv Bajaj, CMD of Bajaj Finserv, has set sights on the healthcare sector by foraying into the health-tech solutions business. Bajaj’s new company, Bajaj Finserv Health, a news age healthcare business, was launched on Tuesday. The business will aggregate and integrate various health service providers — from doctors, hospitals, diagnostics — and connect to customers and add financing, insurance and soon marketplace for medicines.

This would have an aggregator model, with telemedicine and an app based service delivery model for meeting all health services requirements from a single tech platform. Bajaj said they would serve unmet needs of consumers and their financial needs with a phygital model by reimagining and reorganising the healthcare ecosystem with an India-centric solution.

The health crisis has created an opportunity to build a “digital first” environment and it is an opportunity to completely transform the healthcare sector, Bajaj said. The health sector is disaggregated today with service provider whether practitioners, diagnostic centres, pharmacies, loan and loan companies working independently, he said. To manage the health challenges, Bajaj said it was important that the various interconnected yet disassociated services are integrated on a single platform to provide comprehensive, personalised and preventive healthcare solutions to everybody, anytime anywhere. From a consumer point of view, they will not have to deal with multiple processes and access points, he said.

Bajaj launched the offering called, Aarogya Care, calling it the first such product in the industry, which offers a wide range of personalised, preventive and prepaid healthcare packages. This would be a subscription based model with company enrolling customers on one hand and linking them up with healthcare service providers along with insurance and finance from other Bajaj Finserv group companies.

While hospitals and other service providers will be having access to customers the patients will get easier access to doctors, hospitals, diagnostics and consultation along with discounts. Bajaj has a customer base of 120 million through its consumer finance, auto finance and insurance business which the company will look at to sell the health solutions.

Bajaj Finserv Health, a fully-owned subsidiary of Bajaj Finserv, will have a mobile-first approach. The app will have a personalised health manager enabling appointments and consultation with doctors, admission to hospitals and assist in carrying out tests at the diagnostics. It will also receive and maintain health records digitally, which would be integrated with the country’s National Health ID.

The offerings include health insurance coverage from Baja Allianz General Insurance, a pre-approved Health EMI facility from Bajaj Finance and discounted rates from service providers in the network. The platform would also generate a lot of data that is expected to be of help while framing health policies and helping in managing clinical research.

Devang Mody, CEO, Bajaj Finserv Health, said they would in a year’s time also integrate the life insurance business as well as the medicine delivery component to the platform. The company has already empanelled 112 hospital partners that operate 200 hospitals across India, three diagnostic and laboratory chains having 671 consumer touch points and over 9,000 doctors registered on the platform.

Mody said the target was to go pan-India and reach 130 cities with 2,000 hospitals and two lakh doctors on the platform soon. The company has started rolling out services in the top 30 cities starting from Western and Southern India.