AffordPlan allows small savings to plan for expensive emergency procedures

How many times you had a toothache but avoided going to the dentist because the treatment is expensive, and took a painkiller instead? 

As health care spending is growing aggressively at 20 per cent annually, patients are ill-prepared for the rising medical expenditures. The commercial health insurance penetration is a mere 6 per cent in India and out-of-pocket spending on private health care is about 90 per cent. 

An effort to find a cure to treat this problem brought together Tejbir Singh, a postgraduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was vice-president at TaxiForSure, and Hemal Bhatt, a former Army captain who was hired by Singh at TaxiForSure, to launch AffordPlan in 2016, a start-up standing at the intersection of health care insurance and technology.  The Delhi-based start-up has raised $10 million from Lok Capital, Omidyar Network, Kalaari Capital and Prime Venture Partners.

The founders compare their savings model to a piggy bank where one can put a small amount regularly to plan for expensive emergency procedures. Consumers also receive discounts on medical bills and diagnostic services when they use AffordPlan services, bringing the overall treatment costs down by 15-20 per cent.

“It (AffordPlan) smoothens the financial situation for the patient by breaking up the lump sum amount into smaller manageable instalments. There are huge possibilities to move towards alternative financing platforms that enable healthcare affordability,” says Shripati Acharya of Prime Venture Partners, one of the investors in the start-up.

The company is leveraging technology to build a multi-layered intelligence around the ailment, hospital and patient. This enables an effective distribution infrastructure to take healthcare focused financial products to the market.

AffordPlan is a reward-based product as compared to health insurances which are usually cost-based. “If a customer needs the money being saved with us for any other emergency, he could take the full amount, unlike health insurances, and walk out,” says Singh, co-founder and CEO, AffordPlan.

With health care spend projected at $200 billion in India by 2020, Singh feels India has only scratched the surface when it comes to health care insurance and a lot needs to be done to increase access and affordability of quality care to the masses.

AffordPlan is a service fee-based model which is charged in return for technology services and a customer engagement ecosystem created for hospitals. It charges a small management fee from hospitals for patients who connect with them through its channel.

The company, which has partnered with over 300 hospitals in the country, has reached out to more than 100,000 patients. The next milestone will be to reach 1 million patients, says Singh. “We expect to break even in the next 18-24 months.” 

The start-up is building a stack of financial services products to cover all kinds of healthcare expenses.