In Conversation With Vaibhav Singh, Co-Founder, Visit Health
Q. Tell us about your startup. What were the challenges of setting up and scale? Where are you based out of and when did you start?
According to recent stats – out of pocket expenditure for healthcare expenses in India stands at 62 percent of the entire expenditure. Now the population is investing more into Mental Wellness, Fitness, Nutrition, Diagnostics, Medicines & regular doctor appointments. Given the changing needs of employee health, most programs today do not cover the entire spectrum of services, thereby, creating a gap in wellness and primary care. As a solution, Visit endeavours to fill this service gap in primary care in India with its one-of-a-kind platform.
We have integrated new technologies into our product to ensure a smooth journey for all employees, bringing together the benefits from the Corporate, TPA, broker and insurer. The primary care services are tied up with an exclusive rewards program and in-app gamification to drive engagement and repeat usage. Being a corporate-focused platform, we work with companies to help design wellness and primary care solutions for their employees and their dependence.
Q. How did you come up with the idea and what was the Eureka moment? How is the startup helping now in COVID times and how does it work around the challenges. How has the product evolved and grown?
Given the healthcare scenario in India, there is a wide gap in wellness and primary care in India. Thus we came up with the idea of launching Visit in 2016with an aim to fill the service gap in primary care in India. With the onset of Covid-19, corporates began realising the need of our products more than before.
Our Eureka moment was to get an IBM deal. The company is known as a leader across the globe for the wellness program.
In the early days, we started as an employee assistance program provider under the entire primary care where we want to position ourselves. Today, we have essentially touched everything under primary care starting from fitness videos, metal health podcasts, teleconsultation, counselors, legal advisers, diet plan management and general physician. We have also recently expanded the OPD program where we have roughly around 28000 plus doctors.
Starting from the wake-up time to sleep tracking, building profiles and rewarding the users for whatever they do on the platform till taking it up before hospitalization is an entire suite that we have now covered.
Q. How did you build the core team (co-founders and initial employees) - How did you meet and how did everyone align to the idea? What is the total team size?
All the co-founders of the team Vaibhav Singh, Anurag Prasad, Shashvat Tripathi and Chetan Anand, have been good friends since 11 years that makes their team strength and coordination one of the biggest differentiators for Visit. All co-founders have worked together on several projects in colleges and the first team was set up there itself. Infact, the next leg of the leadership team has four VPs, out of which three of them are college-mates.
The foundation of Visit is very strong, built on trust and the people we have worked and known for the past 11years. That’s the reason, we have grown leaps and bounds in terms of financial and human resources and built a team of 101 members and still counting.
Q. What is Visit’s USP?
In simple terms, Visit is a one-stop platform for all employee health benefits needs. We help companies build a personalized Wellness solution focusing on primary care aspects including physical and emotional wellbeing, teleconsultations and OPD programs for employees and their families. This framework supports reducing out-of-pocket expenses, thus creating a healthier and happier environment.
Our state-of-the-art app is a full-stack and one-of-a-kind platform with the highest level of engagement and customizations at an individual employee level. It has an average sign-up rate of 60-70% with 30-40% monthly active users, even after 3 years of implementation.
The application uses a data smart approach to engage and guide users throughout their care journey around the four wellness pillars: Physical, Emotional, Legal and Financial. It promotes habit formation through gamification such as conducting regular step challenges and health-a-thons along with reward programs called FITCoins that act as a digital currency.
Moreover, the app also integrates the Corporate's existing TPA to manage employees’ secondary care. Therefore, it bridges the gap between the end-users, insurance providers and third-party administrators (TPA) by providing a unified platform for all healthcare concerns.
Q. How are you embracing remote work in your organization?
Covid-19 has thrust many leaders into remote management which requires a different skill set than face-to-face management. They have been forced to make this transition quickly, and for the most part, without training. While some jobs have proven adaptable, many sectors are not well-suited for the remote environment and many workers have home lives that present overwhelming challenges.
Q. Future plans?
As a holistic health benefits platform, Visit envisions to be a leader in the corporate wellness space. It aims to become the go-to platform for corporates to launch diverse programs for employee health and wellness. In the coming few months, the company focuses on learning and exploring the Employee Assistance Program in-depth to provide the users with services to maintain productivity and reduce absenteeism. In addition, it plans to onboard doctors to expand its OPD, diagnostic and health check-up network and aims to be the go-to service provider in Digital Health and Primary Care in India.
On the technology front, Visit continues to focus on upgrading tech integration and solution for all stakeholders’ seamless care journey. Additionally, it plans to improve its gamification process, multifaceted with a new, more engaging and exclusive rewards system
