According to the founders of myUpchar, government’s telemedicine practice guidelines helped cement this position in a big way
Health-tech company myUpchar witnessed a growth of 25 percent in the three months since July, while it had previously reported a 300 percent growth during the lockdown period. The data is based on a first-of-its-kind report by myUpchar on the state of teleconsulting in Bharat.
Titled “Emergence of Teleconsultation in Bharat: How Bharat has leveraged Teleconsultation since lockdown”, the new report collates data over six months till September 2020, consisting of the lockdown and post-lockdown phases, to glean important insights into who is using teleconsultation today, where, how much and for what.
According to the report, consultations for dependents—that is, children under 18 and parents over 60—grew 80 percent after the lockdown was lifted, in a huge vote of confidence from the patients’ guardians. 90 percent of teleconsultation requests on myUpchar come from people living outside the major metros and capital cities; with more than half coming from Tier 3 and beyond. Expectedly, teleconsultation requests are higher in states that have poorer health scores and infrastructure. More and more women are seeking medical advice via teleconsulting. While women in Tier 1 are the largest female customer base for the company currently, encouragingly, more women from Tiers 2, 3 and 4 are starting to reach out now. Over 64 percent of patients asked for online consultations with an allopathic doctor from June-August 2020. The share of Ayurveda consultations was 24.3 percent and Homoeopathy, 11.4 percent, in this period.
Releasing the report, the founders of the company – Rajat Garg and Manuj Garg – credited the sustained rise in teleconsultations to growing trust in teleconsulting, the quality of experience that myUpchar offers and a positive shift in people’s perception of online health services in the post-Covid world. The founders also felt that the government’s Telemedicine Practice Guidelines helped cement this position in a big way, by removing doubts and uncertainties in the minds of experienced doctors and specialists.
