Manipal Health, Portea tie up for primary care service

Manipal Health Enterprises, a unit of the Manipal Group, has entered into a partnership with Portea Medical to provide health related services at the patient’s doorstep.

As part of this tie-up, Manipal will provide services such as physician consultations, specialized nursing, physiotherapy, diagnostics, pharmaceutical delivery and equipment rentals, company officials said.

Further, post-surgical care packages for cancer care and neuro rehab services will be offered, cutting down the length of stay in the hospitals, and bring down treatment cost associated, they added.

One of the reasons Manipal is doing this is to focus on core areas in specialised care instead of primary care, which will be handled by Portea, according to Gopal Devanahalli, Senior Vice President- Business and Technology Transformation, Manipal Hospitals. Portea, which specialises in home care, gets the opportunity to service Manipal’s patients and share revenues.

Portea, which last December got Rs.48 crore in Series A funding from Accel Partners, plans to go beyond the four metros and this partnership would help the company achieve that, industry watchers said.

However, both companies did not go into details of revenue sharing.

Growth expectation

“Patients stand to gain as effective medical services delivered at home can play a key role in recovery,” said Sudarshan Ballal, Medical Director & Chairman – Medical Advisory Board.

Manipal expects strong growth over the next two years, and aims to cover 25 per cent of its overall in-patient base and about 5 per cent of out-patients, officials said. Business Line