Krsnaa Diagnostics – what is the diagnosis?

I was in Mumbai recently and did a couple of scuttlebutt visits to Krsnaa’s Aapli Chikitsa centre in KB Bhabha Hospital, Kurla on 11th and 12th April. Krsnaa has had a radiology setup in the hospital for a long time (1 CT machine) and the Aapli Chikitisa Path clinic has opened up recently (1 month).

Some observations from my visit (These are anecdotal, so remember that before drawing inferences or conclusions)

1. I first enquired about the Aapli Chikitsa clinic with Krsnaa’s customer care. They were super evasive at first and their first response was to direct me to their labs in Nerul and Dombivli (These are likely older labs they already had in Mumbai). After a lot of persistence, I was able to ferret out the details of the Aapli Chikitsa clinics in Bandra (E & W), Kurla and Santa Cruz. From what the lady said, they have about 10 such centres in Mumbai. I went to the Kurla one on 12th April.

2. Krsnaa has a ton of radiology branding as soon as you enter the hospital and along all major walkways. A lot of the branding is joint BMC + Krsnaa branding (Pics attached) Its likely that a number of patients going to the hospital will register the name Krsnaa Diagnostics and associate it with a radiology service provider. There is zero branding of pathology so far in the hospital.

3. The Aapli Chikitsa centre is a small 200sft room in the hospital (Pic attached) – next to the radiology unit – where there are 3-4 Krsnaa staff (some wearing Krsnaa uniforms and some in plain clothes) who are collecting samples, filing patient records on the computer and then dispatching them for analysis to their mother lab in Dombivli. There was a mad rush in front of the Aapli Chikitsa centre when I reached around 12 PM and the staff was visibly struggling to control the chaos.

4. The centre closes sample collection for OPD patients at 12 PM (The customer care wrongly informed me that sample collection was done till 2 PM; that’s only for IPD patients). When the Krsnaa staff heard I had reached them via customer care, they decided to make a special exception for me (I could hear the staff talk amongst themselves; Clearly the Aapli chikitsa service levels getting -ve media attention has caused Krsnaa to treat such cases with care). Even though I did not have a doctor’s prescription and it was after 12 PM, I was told to go and make the payment for the sample collection.

5. The card rate is 50 Rs for a host of basic tests (89 in total – you can get all 89 done for 50 Rs in theory, but I guess they would need a doc’s prescription to do tests) and 100 Rs for 48 advance tests (Test slip pic attached). To make the payment there was a long line at the payment counter where I waited my turn for about 30 mins. The payment staff then refused to accept my payment because it was post 12 and they asked me to get it in writing from the Aapli Chikitsa clinic staff that my sample would be accepted inspite of the cut-off time having passed.

6. With the help of the Aapli Chikitsa staff I could get my payment deposited (They clearly gave me preferential treatment; Heard the staff tell one of the other patients that I was able to get the test done today as I was a “relative of somebody higher up”). Unfortunately, by the time it was my turn to get my blood sample collected, the last set of samples were already leaving for the lab and I could not get my sample collected (I missed to see the vehicle in which they transport their samples). I was asked to report again the next day morning at 9 AM to have my sample collected. While leaving, one of the staff members acknowledged to me that the pathology services were not yet streamlined and reports were taking time and getting delayed. She said after sample collection, I could expect my reports within 24-48 hours.

7. I went back to the clinic on 13th morning at 8:30 AM. Even though the staff start sample collection at 9:30 AM, there were already about 30 people ahead of me in line at 8:30 AM. This should give you an idea of the demand for such low cost services. About 95% of the people queuing up seemed to be from the lower middle class. After waiting for 1 hour and 45 mins, I was still #20-25 in the queue (I realized later that several people had blocked their places in the queue by informing the person standing ahead of him/her; So the queue was even longer than it seemed at first), so I had to leave without getting the tests done.

8. While in queue, I was chatting with a few other people. A few of them told me that they’d been prescribed 5-6 tests by the doctor but Krsnaa’s report had results for only 2-3 and so they had to come back for a second round of tests by paying another 50 Rs.

9. Overall, the impression that I got was, the Aapli Chikitsa initiative has wild demand due to the discounted rates. Krsnaa, who have just been awarded the contract, are yet to streamline their services and hence there are some disruptions at the moment (which have been reported in the media), but the lab (at least in this Hospital) was functioning. The unit economics of these tests for Krsnaa would be worth finding out, maybe could go as questions to Management in future interactions.

Relevant pics from my visit attached.