A Gurgaon-based Business Process Outsourcing firm recently called in a team of doctors after it started seeing a large number of its employees reporting sick. The doctors, from Fortis Hospitals, initially conducted a series of seminar at the round-the-clock call centre, driving home the importance of healthcare hygiene. Since then, Fortis has implanted trained medical staff at the premises of the BPO.

A large MNC, which was recently in the midst of a restructuring exercise, called Max Healthcare's psychology department to be stationed full-time at its office during the downsizing exercise as it wanted to avoid undue mental trauma among its workforce.

These are just two examples of how corporate India is increasingly partnering with hospitals to address healthcare concerns of employees. As a result, hospital chains such as Max, Fortis and Apollo are seeing a 30-35 per cent growth in this segment with a quarter of their total revenues coming from such alliances.

Fortis, for example, has close to 25 “implants” – healthcare professionals assigned to specific clients – in large corporates based in Delhi and the NCR. These include HCL, Barclays Shared Services Centre, Patni and i-Gate. In addition, Fortis handles more than 150 corporate entities, which have self- funded OPD and IPD healthcare employee benefits.

“With high stress levels and the often hectic lifestyles of corporate executives, lifestyle diseases like Diabetes and Heart ailments are taking on epidemic proportions, “says Mr Anas Abdul Wajid, Head- Sales & International Business, Fortis Healthcare.

The corporate business accounts for approximately 25 per cent of Fortis' revenue. “This segment continues to grow as more and more corporate offer healthcare benefits,” adds Mr Wajid.

With increasing awareness about the benefits of employee healthcare, corporates are expanding the scope to beyond just implants or OPD facilities. Max Healthcare, for instance, is offering a range of managed services like health survey, concierge facilities such as sample blood collection, preventive checks and customised solutions to promote wellness. “Max manages various implants or medical rooms across client sites. We have about 15 out patient clinics in large corporate and premier Clubs. In addition we also offer OPD and IPD facilities to employees of 90 corporates without third party administrator association,” said Ms Arpita Mukherjee, AGM-Marketing and Product Planning, Max Healthcare.

Chennai headquartered Apollo Group has floated an entire subsidiary called Apollo Life to manage corporate clients including implants at the Chennai, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad airports. “Nearly a third of our revenue comes from this segment. We have more than 110 implants across the nation where we cover all types of services starting from 24 hr to a 8 hr coverage, lifestyle counselling and ambulatory support, We have implants in industrial and SEZs as well,” says Mr Sumanta Ray Senior Vice-President – Group Marketing, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited.

Bearing the cost

While the arrangement works out well for the corporates and the hospital groups, in some cases the cost of giving this facility is loaded onto the employees. “Though most of the bigger companies offer the service as part of the HR employee benefit schemes, there are smaller firms which show this as part of the employee's salary. But this is only a small segment of 5-10 per cent,” said a Bangalore-based job consultant for BPO firms.

Healthcare firms claim they are unaware of such practice but say that there are other challenges. “A large number of corporates in India are still not overly conscious of an employer's responsibilities towards its employees, from a healthcare perspective. Some corporates do not yet promote preventive health checks or healthy lifestyle choices among employees. We follow up with HR and other benefit managers to conduct health talks – while employees do attend these sessions, attendance could be better,” says Mr Wajid.

The other concern for the hospital firms is that the margins in this business are very low as corporates push for discounts. “One of the biggest challenges in this segment is to recruit, train and retain quality manpower and yet be competitively priced. Corporates negotiate on pricing; however, quality manpower, processes and standards have to be premium priced,” says Ms Mukherjee.

>tkt@thehindu.co.in

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