Lokman Hekim HYSET - Online exchange place for medical services
/HYSET is an online marketplace for medical services
Lokman Hekim (LKMNH) has established Her Yerde Saglik ve Elektronik Ticaret A.S. or HYSET, as a medical technology business, to house an online marketplace for healthcare services. The operation is located at Teknopark Ankara.
Business — Demand side
HYSET medical marketplace offers patients seeking care with an online platform where they can match their needs and requirements with services available in the HYSET provider network. The marketplace indeed puts medical practice in front of potential patients right when and where they require the services effectively reducing time spent to schedule doctor visits or secure prescriptions.
Business — Care providers side
On the supply side, the online exchange place is open to member hospitals, clinics and physicians that together make up the network of providers. Medical service providers that are in the network can schedule appointments, manage shifts, and advertise the services they have on offer. The network also provides online aggregation for participating physicians and other medical professionals enabling convenient and easy listings and scheduling.
The site — online marketplace
The online exchange place is up and running. Visitors and potential patients can browse and book services on offer by participating care providers. The site currently attracts nearly 1,000 visitors a day; this number should at least double by 2Q21. HYSET also manages a loyalty program online. Members/visitors who have accounts with the exchange place are offered special rewards for any purchase they make or appointments they book online.
Medical care services on offer
HYSET online exchange place for healthcare currently lists the following services.
Check-up packages — three packages available on offer at member hospitals and clinics in Ankara, Antalya, Eskisehir, Istanbul and Van.
Pregnancy and maternity services — three different packages on offer at participating network hospitals in Ankara, Antalya and Istanbul.
Esthetics and cosmetics procedures — nine different products and procedures on offer by hospitals in Ankara, Antalya, Eskisehir, Istanbul and Van.
Home care and senior care — four different care at home and senior care services are offered by participating hospitals in Ankara.
Dietician services offered at Ankara and Antalya locations.
Online specialty care, telemedicine.
Unconventional medicine and therapy including acupuncture.
Supplementary products, probiotics, vitamins.
Procedures and services tailored to needs and requests.
Price transparency — work in progress
Price transparency is possibly the most challenging aspect of today’s healthcare industry and the practice of medical insurance. Consumers cannot make informed decisions because they do not see actual costs of services they require. There is cross country evidence that cost and physician quality are at best uncorrelated. Higher price does not necessarily come with better quality of care.
HYSET online marketplace for medical services is an important venture in that it plans to provide care seekers full pricing transparency unprecedented in the industry. The patients browsing HYSET online exchange place can currently compare and contrast various products and procedures offered by member hospitals in the network.
Pricing comparison, currently unavailable, is work in progress. Once online price comparison feature is up and running, the marketplace will furnish advance pricing by product and services supplied by member hospitals, medical centers, outpatient clinics and individual physicians. If HYSET management executes the business plan fully, the patients will see the quotes by hospital/clinic location or physician before they go ahead to book appointments or purchase various care packages and services offered online by participating healthcare providers.
A long runway of growth lies ahead
Recent trends in remote medical services across Turkey are indeed encouraging. HYSET is experiencing better traffic online in 3Q20 than it did the same period last year. The online marketplace business is to have strong growth in post-COVID environment HYSET expects to reach out to a wider population and grow its network of service providers over the next three-to-five years.
We expect online demand for healthcare services to remain a robust segment of the broader medical services industry with a long runway of growth ahead of it. The growth is driven by strong demographics not only on the demand side. The supply side is also evolving, hospitals and free lance physicians alike. The pandemic has put a lot of pressure especially on primary care physicians. Many are possibly eyeing partnerships with larger systems including technology firms. Medical practices with MedTech-focused business models and repositories of funding such as HYSET are likely to grow network of individual physicians and medical professionals and thrive their business.
In terms of specific member count and the network itself, HYSET currently operates at 6 Lokman Hekim locations and 12 other hospitals and outpatient clinics. The total accessible market is in excess of 600 private sector hospitals. We exclude state-run hospitals and healthcare clinics in TAM for now. HYSET should be able to add 10 hospitals and outpatient clinics to its network by the end of 2020 and additional 50 in 2021 and 200 in 2022.
Lokman Hekim shares provide exposure to HYSET
Lokman Hekim invested TL500,000 in HYSET share capital when the latter was established in 2019. Lokman currently owns 100% of HYSET’s equity. HYSET is a private company owned by Lokman, a public company. HYSET does not currently have plans to raise debt or equity. The needs may change. At the moment, exposure to HYSET can only be obtained through Lokman Hekim shares, listed on Borsa Istanbul. HYSET does not have any other investment vehicle providing exposure to its business.