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COVER STORY
What are the strategies that use to keep the
cost of treatment low?
One of the key factors of high cost is the
high cost of consumables. The scale of be-
ing the largest player in the country gives
us an edge over others and ensures better
bargaining capability with the suppliers. I
am personally involved at the negotiation
with each of the key suppliers.
We also have our own biomedical team
to manage repairs and we invest in preven-
tive maintenance to reduce cost. We also
follow a lean management structure and
focus on optimal use of resources. One of
the main reasons we would keep the cost
of manpower low is due to our 12 train-
ing academies spread across the country.
Around 1,200 students pass out of the
academy every year. For rolling out new
projects, we follow the cookie cutter ap-
proach. This keeps the cost low and also
enables us to roll out new centres in 20 to
25 days, whereas others take a few months
for the same.
How do you see NephroPlus five years
from now?
In the next two years, we would have in-
ternational footprints and would open 30
to 40 centres every year. In the next five
years, we would look at more acquisitions
in India and overseas to get to network
scale of over 400 centres and operations in
five countries.
What kind of dialysis players you look at
for acquisition?
One that has a network of over 10 centres
and has good clinical standards. The centres
on average should have over 10 beds.
Would the trend of hospital outsourcing
dialysis picking up more in the future?
Absolutely! Hospitals are not keen on
investing in dialysis as the margins are low
or negative when one runs a single dialysis
centre or even a few. Currently, groups such
as Max Healthcare, Medanta, Medica Syner-
gie and Sahyadri and 100 other private hos-
pitals have outsourced their dialysis service
to us. The business model is on a revenue
sharing model, whereby hospitals provide
us space and we run the centre with our
equipment and manpower.
The reason most of the top hospitals
currently outsource their dialysis wing is
because of three reasons. Firstly, we have
the technical know-how to provide highest
quality treatment along with exceptional
service levels due to which all our centres
grow roughly by 70% in 12 – 15 months.
Secondly, we bring in scale and focus-
driven efficiencies that will be beneficial
to hospital partner. Dialysis is a specialised
niche service that does not account for
more than 1% of revenue for any hospital.
It does not move the needle at all for them
and hence they cannot invest too much
bandwidth to manage efficiency and qual-
ity. Thirdly, hospitals get a share of rev-
enue without investing in the centre and
operations are completely managed by us,
ensuring zero hassle cost for a specialised
service like dialysis.Would NephroPlus start offering kidney
transplantation or get into any other busi-
ness model associated with dialysis?
No! Our expertise is dialysis care and would
focus on that only. We would want to ex-
pand internationally in the dialysis segment
but are not keen to expand to any other
healthcare vertical at this time.- For rolling out
new projects, it
follows the cookie
cutter approach.
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