Against Popular Belief, myUpchar Witnesses 25% Rise In Teleconsultations Post Lockdown The report highlighted that people who are dependants such as children under 18 and parents over 60, consultations for them grew by 80 per cent after the lockdown was lifted

Healthcare startup myUpchar on Thursday announced that its teleconsultations arm has witnessed significant growth even after the countrywide lockdown was lifted.

The healthtech company witnessed a growth of 25 per cent in the three months since July, while it had previously reported a 300 per cent growth during the lockdown period. The startup noted that the growth of teleconsultations in the post-lockdown period is against the popular belief that people will go for physical checkup to clinics/hospitals.

Titled Emergence of Teleconsultation in Bharat: How Bharat has leveraged Teleconsultation since lockdown, the new report collates data over six months till September 2020, consisting of the lockdown and post-lockdown phases, to glean important insights into who is using teleconsultation today, where, how much and for what.

The report highlighted that people who are dependants such as children under 18 and parents over 60, consultations for them grew by 80 per cent after the lockdown was lifted.

The report observed that around 90 per cent of teleconsultation requests on myUpchar come from people living outside the major metros and capital cities, with more than half coming from tier III and beyond.

The telecommunication requests were higher from states with poorer health scores and infrastructure.

It noted that while women in tier 1 are the largest female customer base for the company, more women from tier II, III and IV are coming to the platform.

Around 64 per cent of patients asked for online consultations with an allopathic doctor from June-August 2020 whereas, the share of Ayurveda consultations was 24.3 per cent and Homoeopathy, 11.4 per cent, in this period.

Co-founded by Stanford University alumni Rajat Garg and Dr Manuj Garg in 2016, myUpchar currently serves five crore people every month and around 10 lakh of their visitors seek teleconsultations and other medical services.

Commenting on the reports, Garg said, "India's telemedicine industry had been chugging along for over 15 years. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, our doctors rose to the challenge of providing healthcare to people who had Covid-like symptoms as well as patients who couldn't access regular health centres and clinics during the lockdown."

"It's a credit to our doctors that they handled the surge in consultations with such integrity and compassion. We are seeing the results of their efforts in terms of repeat consultations and more confidence among users. It helps that our partner chemists and labs were able to fill prescriptions and run tests during and after the lockdown with alacrity and precision," he further added.