In a country like India where 6 out of 10 people pay directly from their own pockets for their healthcare, pushing households into abject poverty, a pathbreaking startup called QubeHealth has come as a real boon.
In the last two years, QubeHealth has provided a whopping Rs 1000 Crore of medical credit line interest free Credit to over one lakh people to be able to pay for their health care expenses.
According to the Chairman of QubeHealth Gagan Kapur who started the company with Co-founder & CEO Chris George, the QubeHealth-Pay or “QubePay” app is a healthcare-payments app, with a pre-approved medical credit line in-built within it.
So how does it work?
Kapur said "When a User pays any health or medical provider across India, they can choose to use their own funds to pay and get an instant discount cashback or can tap into the pre-approved Credit Line that is available to them within the App. They simply enter the amount they wish to pay, complete a two-step KYC process, add their bank account details for the future EMIs, and the money is transferred directly to the healthcare provider. This entire loan journey takes less than five minutes. It’s that simple".
According to Kapur, the best part is that the loan is no-cost. "No interest or fee is charged to the User," he added.
According to some studies, out of the 1.324 billion people in India, around 12.4% of the population is below the poverty line. In India, out-of-pocket health expenditure (OOP) expenses account for about 62.6% of total health expenditure – one of the highest in the world. High OOP health expenditures push many households into poverty.
So what was Kapur's core idea behind coming up with this brilliant idea?
"Inadequate Health Insurance was the major deciding factor behind this idea. Insurance falls short in covering healthcare expenses, paying for less than 40% of the costs. This results in very high "Out-of-Pocket Expenditure," with three out of four individuals inadequately insured. The national average group health insurance coverage per employed person in India is a mere $6,000, and supplementary insurance often comes with restrictive conditions. Elective non-emergency procedures (dental, eye care, etc.) are expensive and never covered under insurance'.
The second reason being Fragmented Payment Methods. "A unified, simplified payment method for healthcare in India is needed. Cash, credit cards, debit cards, bank transfers, UPI, insurance, and even family gold make the process of healthcare payments challenging and confusing. Ironically, payment for other retail products and services has been simplified, but not for healthcare. There is also tremendous ambiguity. Questions such as "I don't have enough money; can I get a loan?" and "How much will it cost?" emphasize the individual's difficulty in controlling financial matters.
At present, QubeHealth has over a lakh user base who are employees of over 300 plus corporate clients who have subscribed to QubePay for their employees.
Kapur added "Indians spend $ 72 billion a year to pay for healthcare from their pockets. Access to no-cost capital to pay for your family’s medical bills, opens up access to healthcare when they need it. The urgency for a solution becomes undeniable, with over 60% of India's population remaining without insurance coverage and healthcare inflation at 14% year-on-year. In addition to the family needs of emergency healthcare, elective procedures such as dental, eye-care, beauty, wellness, assistant pregnancy, and others are driving massive expenditure in Indian family homes".
So what is the company's plan over the next five years?
Kapur says "QubePay is rapidly expanding across Indian Corporates, and will have a million Users within the next three years. We are growing our Usage at an ARR of 300%, and expect to process Rs 1000 Crores of healthcare payments within the next three years. Access to money will change the consumption of healthcare, leading to better healthcare outcomes for us Indians. This mission was driven by a deep understanding of the health insurance ecosystem and the way technologies like UPI have disrupted the payments ecosystem".
