With health taking centre stage due to the coronavirus pandemic, companies, both large and small, are increasing their focus on employee health. Going beyond insurance, companies are also partnering with healthcare services to enable more access for employees.
As a result of this increased focus, online healthcare platforms such as MFine has seeing increased demand, thanks to services such as virtual medical consultations.
Organizations in India are also fast turning to telemedicine as part of their employee health programs.
MFine has said that its corporate product has seen strong growth in the last two months with more than 35 organizations partnering with the company to offer virtual Outpatient Department (OPD) consultation benefits such as preventive health checks, mental health consultations and advanced screenings to their employees.
“Companies usually offer health insurance, which covers in-patient treatment, which is when you get admitted. But outpatient care isnt covered in insurance. And a person would typically have more OPD requirement than in-patient. So many employees often don’t avail healthcare benefit unless they’re admitted. Now with COVID, even OPD has become important, especially for health checks. And when going to the hospital is risky, it’s become important for corporates to provide these facilities and that’s where we come into the picture,” Ashutosh Lawania, Co-Founder, MFine says.
And this is where online healthcare platforms step in where users can assess their health with the help of doctors online, assess symptoms, especially of COVID.
MFine is offering a range of corporate health programs for employees that cover primary Care, specialty Care (gynaecology, paediatrics, urology, diet and dermatology, etc) and super-specialty care.
Telemedicine too, has gained prominence, with visiting a hospital now posing risk of infection.
There has been more demand from employees too, for comprehensive healthcare packages as part of their employment contracts. MFine says it has seen that apart from hospitalization benefits, some of the most common requested inclusions are teleconsultation, specialties such as gynecology and paediatrics, mental health cover, OPD visits, and home health checkups. Recently, IRDAI has also mandated health policies to cover telemedicine consultations.
“During this time of social distancing, the technology has the power to provide care for patients without exposing them to the COVID-19 health risks that will be present in most of the hospitals for months to come. Virtual visits can help manage chronic conditions and with more companies offering work at home strategies, there's a surge of interest in and the necessity of, general health and well-being also being managed from the home,” the company said in a statement.
The startup has over 2500 doctors from over 500 leading hospitals consulting across 30 specialities on its platform. MFine claims to be currently assisting more than 10,000 transactions every day.
It aims to add 200 more corporates in the next 6 months.
Users get a valid prescription at the end of a consultation and can get medicines delivered using the MFine app. In addition to virtual visits, MFine also allows for a physical follow up with the doctor at hospitals for no additional costs. Apart from teleconsultations, employees can avail on-the-job medical screenings, which has been live on MFine for the last 2 years.