Meena Ganesh: Driving home the advantage

An entrepreneur since 2000 and holding a portfolio of multiple startups that includes unicorn such as Big Basket, Meena Ganesh, in 2013, was looking at a new area to build a business. She felt that healthcare in India was a space ripe for disruption but did not want to create a facility based on a hospital model.

This was the genesis of Portea Medical, a company that caters to outside-of-hospital-care with a focus on home care.

The company targets three key segments -- people with chronic diseases, people who need post-operative care and senior citizens.

“We try to be as comprehensive with the family, giving them everything they need from a doctor or a nurse or supportive care with a nursing attendant, medical equipment, pharmacy, labs, so they don’t have to run around to get their problem solved,” says Ganesh.

Outside of hospital care makes for about 50% of the entire $100 billion healthcare sector. Within that, the segment that the company covers is valued at $5-6 billion. Portea, in the segment, according to Ganesh, leads with a huge margin.

Portea Medical has been seeing a 30-50% Year-on-Year (y-o-y) growth annually and currently does about 5,000 home visits a day.

Alluding to the differences in the home care procedure, Ganesh says, “Globally, home health care is a large part of the overall healthcare ecosystem, but not so much in India. In most western countries, healthcare is largely government-funded, while in India it is mostly self-paid. The focus needs to be on what the customer wants than what the regulator wants you to do. It’s an entirely different approach when you go to the market.”

The company is presently in 16 locations, with Bengaluru and Delhi being the largest markets. Portea employs 4,000 people, including doctors, nurses and other caregivers.

Nursing, providing equipment to hire and providing pharmaceuticals support to the patient, are some of the areas contributing majorly to the company’s revenue.

Ganesh mentions that there are no specific regulations for the home care sector.

“We work with most of the large hospitals as their exclusive partner in their continuity of care, which adds to our credibility. As an industry, we have also come up with standards of how healthcare should be provided at home, with an organisation; QAI, so the quality of care that we provide is as per standards,” she explains.

The company has raised close to $60 million and concluded the Series C round of funding in November 2017.

What are they working on?

Portea has recently launched InControl, a diabetic care programme that provides a comprehensive diabetes care plan, one-on-one monitoring and guidance to the patient. The subscription to InControl costs Rs 1,999 for a year.

About a year ago, the company began offering ICU at-home services, as a part of its post-operative care plan. “Somebody post-cardiac surgery needs recovery to happen at their home—some medical procedures, rehabilitation—that’s the whole programme we put in place,” she said.

The company’s post-operative services also include rehabilitation for cancer patients and those with pulmonary disorders.

The third offering that the company introduced last year, is Portea health prime, a membership service for senior citizens, which helps them manage their health over elongated periods.

With this facility, senior citizens get a health manager, who makes sure that all their health needs are being managed. They also get an alert device, to be used in case of an emergency.

Talking about the cost difference, Ganesh says, “A physiotherapy visit or nursing care at home would not be very different in terms of cost from a hospital, but setting up a full-fledged ICU would be much cheaper than a hospital.”

Stating that there were no credible players when they started, she says, “It’s started to become more mainstream. The ecosystem is maturing and it is making it easier for us to do business.”