Redefining medical tourism

“We hate to call it Medical Tourism,” is the answer you get, when you ask Abhik Moitra, Director and Co-Founder of HBG Medical Assistance company, of his thoughts on international patients travelling to India. Tourism to us is a word of luxury. The person who is travelling from African countries, CIS Countries or from the Middle East is a case of serious nature. The patients can barely avoid going to the hospital when they land in India, leave apart any indulgence. At best it can be called Medical Travel. But beyond the medical care, these travellers need language experts, cost advocacy, escorting, accommodation, logistics etc. Broadly, they need ‘assistance’ and that is why we call our business, a business of medical assistance.

HBG Medical Assistance or ‘High Beam Global,’ as it is popularly known, is one of the most organised players in the market. The reach of their service covers Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Iraq, Oman and Yemen. The portfolio covers referrals, institutional, Internet, travel companies and government sector.

“Our aim is to win customers through service excellence. That is why we have possibly the largest patient servicing team in India. Each patient who is using our service is assigned a case manager who is responsible for even smallest of the needs of that patient. It is like having a personal protocol manager,” says Nandita Gupta, Fellow Director and Co Founder. The service orientation is paying off. Today HBG has possibly the largest list of insurance customers amongst industry players. Some of the key accounts that they manage have been there since the day they started about four years back. They have been growing together.

So, what has been their key strength? “Our team,” answers Ratul Moitra, Chief Operating Officer and in-charge of HR, Compliance and Business Intelligence. Today, HBG has not only gained a leadership position in the industry, it has given this industry many trained personnel. In a scenario where professionals with domain knowledge are scarce, this is another contribution HBG has been making to the industry. Thanks to their robust training and knowledge sharing culture.

So what next? The answer is almost unanimous. We have just started. There are many sectors to be explored, many more geographies to be covered and more destinations to make a presence in. The industry is supposed to become $40 billion in size in next two to three years. We wish to become the largest contributor to this number. We wish to contribute in Indian healthcare in whatever way we can and we wish India to be proud of us.

Nandita says, “Our immediate goal is to expand beyond the current geographies we are catering. Any new market takes nine to 12 months to give results. Thus we need to start now to expect later. We are eyeing the western markets. If they can contribute to Turkey and Thailand, they can definitely contribute to India. Also, with the Government proposing Visa On Arrival for 80 countries soon, our horizon has increased too. We wish to use this opportunity to the best.” Ratul adds, “We have plans of getting into training and use e-commerce platform to expand our business. Outsourcing remains another area which we are exploring.”

When faced with a question of challenges, Nandita indicates towards lack of structure in the industry today. She says, “There are no entry barriers. Anyone can become a player given the absence of ground rules. Some of these new entrants are there for short term gains and destroys the image of the country as a destination.” Ratul says, “As industry is still gaining domain knowledge, to get an employee and make him learn the business increases the time gap to make him/her productive, thereby increasing the manpower costs.”

However, Abhik remains bullish. He comments that these are the days which are shaping the industry and they are happy to contribute in this evolution. There is a huge potential in the market and many sectors still remain unexplored. He keeps investing his time and energy into newer avenues of growth. “We will redefine medical travel. The days are not far when other industries like banking, pharma, hospitality and travel will sit up and accept the contribution medical travel companies have made to their books. Soon the hospital will understand that we are their distribution arms and we can reach faster into any market with lower costs. Many have already started to put us in their annual plans and add us in their overall structure.”

Does competition play any role? “An organised and healthy competition ends up increasing the market size. Thus it is more than welcomed,” says Abhik. “However, the threat comes when the very brands you are selling start becoming your competitors within the same customer segment. Though we are not afraid of competition, it definitely increases the cost of doing business. But this will not deter us from achieving what we intend to. Competition pushes us to innovate and demands us to remain ahead of the curve. High beam global is happy doing so.”