MyDentist, the operative brand name for ‘Total Dental Care Pvt Ltd (TDCPL)’, aims to make dental clinics accessible to all and aims to have clinics within a short distance for everyone.
Incorporated by Vikram Vora in 2009 who used to trade in dental products, the chain today has 111 clinics with nine of them being in Bengaluru. It ultimately aims to have some 50-60 clinics across Bengaluru alone.
The group as of now operates clinics in the co-owned and co-operated model. It now aims to tweak it to the franchise model to speed up its expansion. This venture comes at a time when some major healthcare providers having exited the dental care space after making an attempt at entering it.
MyDentist had raised Rs 50 crore as Series C in July 2015 from LGT Venture Philanthropy, Seedfund (who also invested in the initial round of fund raising) and the Asian Health Fund. LGT Venture Philanthropy is an impact investor supporting organisations with outstanding social and environmental impact. It has so far raised some Rs 108 crore.
With clinics across Greater Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Ahmedabad and Bengaluru, a team of over 500 dentists and a cumulative patient count of over 300,000, it has become the largest dental care chain in the country.
“The company has a clear focus on providing affordable quality dental care to the burgeoning and aspiring middle class,” Vikram Vora, CEO, Total Dental Care Pvt Ltd, told Express. To increase affordability, the firm is directly working with companies like 3M that supply some of the raw materials used by a dentist during treatment process.
MyDentist on an average services 15,000 patients in a month, which gives it economies of scale. It aims to work in a hub and spoke model, with one central office covering clinics within a four-five km radius. MyDentist’s patient management system is cloud-based and hence platform and location independent, mobile and scaleable, added Vohra.
■ Dentists are recruited as employees by the firm’s dental director’s council
■ Continuous learning programmes for dentists to upgrade their skills
■ Use a payment gateway for credit and debit card payments allowing EMI payments
■ Standardised treatment, pricing across clinics
■ Pioneered the concept of dental brace treatments on installments
The entire patient data, electronic records, patient records and treatment data is available across all the clinics over its cloud-based clinic management suite. Its telephony system is also cloud-based.
Not everyone seems welcoming of the development though. “It’s a corporate setup and many a patient is not comfortable with the set up as they do not have a personal rapport with their dentist,” said a dentist who has had a practice for 15 years. “While the older dentists continue to thrive, the new entrants that have a high overhead often struggle as they work on low margins.”