Hospitals, pharmacies.. contd…

• You could have seen few things which might not look in a synchronized way but give it a deep thought.

• Lots of Chain of pharmacies launched. (Like Apollo, med plus etc)

• If you have noted down, they will provide electronic /computerized bills even if you buy an action 500 tablet.

• They would have asked you for name and age and we will happily give it because we can get tax claims out of that and also we feel happy that we are not cheated.

• Lots of hospitals have started feeding the patient data in computers. So whenever you go there they can pull your file and give a print out to you and we feel happy there also, since there is no need for us to carry all medical bills and prescription with us. (What a customer/patient delight…)

• Many private hospitals have entered into joint venture with foreign insurance companies and launched insurance schemes of their own.( Apollo, lotus, KMCH, Fortis etc)

• Few cash rich insurance providers have started hospital chains. (STAR insurance –clinic.) And they have branches in all cities and tie up clinics in most of the sub urban. Now think. Every day at least 10000 people by medicines/visit clinics/undergo check up in any of these places? So, they have a valuable data base and effective client base of 10000 people every day. They can market their products specifically to you alone. You might wonder some day you will be getting a call from Apollo hospitals asking you to come and check for the viral fever you are suffering with. The only reason is you would have purchased two crocin and a cetrezen a day before. Also, they provide medical insurance to you and make sure you cannot hide existing illness, and they can reject your claims stating that on 23 Jan 2009, you have purchased an action 500, and that might be a reason for your current illness, since it was not prescribed by a doctor.

This, as Philip kotler would want to describe as  the Smart & innovative business idea

Hospitals, Insurance companies and supply chain…

the new change happening in the indian medical scenario, is the supply chain integration of medical services, led by international players.

supply chain integration?? simple terms , one will control the entire flow of process back and front. in this context, I will have a pharma factory to produce medicine, i will have medical store to supply medicines to patients, i will have hospitals to check patients, my doctors will recommend my medicines, you will buy medicines from my pharmacy, and if it is a seroius illness, i will sell you an insurnace policy, again from a insurnace company i own. so, money can never go out of my pocket, and obviously the patient..

now think of ranbaxy, fortis, apollo, star … does any one of these people dont have any of the supply chain units with them? and of course, a million crowd of patients too….

The wolves are back…

If you have seen in the recent days, there are a lot of summits happening all through the world- they call it US summit, Asia Pac summits and what not….but what do they discuss? Is that of something important which would bring a rationale to their investment advice given to the world’s richest? A big no.. the Reuters Wealth management summit which concluded just now, has all the honchos of private banking and wealth management world discuss these important things

- how to maximize their revenue

- how to bring back the blood thirst risk appetite among their clients

- How to run their original show without getting affected by recent regulatory issues- this they didn’t touch directly, but every speaker has raised a ‘concern’- protesting in their own ways….

What ever happens, they still do not want to be transparent … As quoted, the essence of banking is to make you indebted and the very essence of private banking is to gamble with your money…