♦ It is very difficult to grow a medical business that is generalist and does not differentiate itself. I think that the chance for doctors who contemplate being an entrepreneur is to open a center in a medical niche.
Donna Medical Center from Bucharest, a business focused on medical services for women, founded in 2011 by Elena Claudia Teodorescu, a radiologist specializing in breast imaging, estimates business of 7 million euros for this year, compared to 5.5 million euros last year last.
“In the first quarter of this year, we worked for the authorization of a new MRI, as part of the endowment of our advanced imaging center in the Pipera area. It is a 1.5 Tesla MRI on which we can do almost all types of examinations. The investment amounted to approximately 700,000 euros”, said Vlad Teodorescu, managing partner of Donna Medical Center clinics, within ZF Private Health.
The foundations of Donna Medical were laid in 2011, and eight years later the second clinic, Donna Medical Center in Pipera, was inaugurated, where an imaging center was developed with a 3 Tesla MRI and a CT (computed tomograph).
In the clinic in Pipera, an expansion of space was made, and the investment also involved the arrangement of a new space, in addition to the installation of MRI and the addition of new offices. Last year, the number of unique patients increased to over 60,000.
The demand for medical services for women is increasing, the clinics have addressability for breast cancer and gynecology investigations.
Donna Medical Center finished last year with business of 5.5 million euros, and for this year it estimates business of 7 million euros.
“We are analyzing the idea of taking us outside of Bucharest with the concept started here. We are now working on this analysis with specialists to determine the chances of success”.
The elements taken into account are the access to doctors with experience in the niche in which the company operates, and here the cities-university centers are the most attractive, according to him. In addition to the part related to human resources, doctors, another element taken into account is the market, respectively potential patients.
“Here we look at both the competition or what is being developed in a geographic area, as well as the purchasing power of patients. So we are talking about a combination of doctors, competition, purchasing power and there are other elements as well”.
Competition is increasingly strong in the Capital, new centers are opening, both start-ups, and the big players continue to develop organically or through acquisitions.
He specifies that it is very difficult to grow a medical business that is generalist and that practically does not differentiate itself through something strategically different. And then, in his opinion, the chance for doctors who contemplate being an entrepreneur is to open their own center in a certain medical niche.
“We believe that with this smaller size we manage to be more flexible, more agile and better respond to patients’ needs”.
Donna Medical Center plans to invest in digitization processes in order to improve efficiency. Moreover, Vlad Teodorescu also says that he sees technology as an opportunity.
“We are talking about protocol-based technology, artificial intelligence. They can help doctors interpret certain examinations better and perhaps faster. We are talking about technologies, for example voice recognition. This part of writing the result is very important and helps us to streamline our process of releasing results faster, which means an advantage for the patient. Software has appeared that we are thinking of integrating, such as voice recognition.”
The company has developed organically in recent years and has constantly invested in expansion. Last year, in autumn, the company opened a niche oncology center for women with cancer, an investment of 250,000 euros. Previously, two years ago, the company opened a medical recovery center, Recondition.
Donna Medical currently has 85 doctors and approximately 10% of the company’s revenues come from contracts with the Health Center. These are revenues from imaging, MRI, CT, mammography and oncology.
“We should have a national screening program for several diseases. All kinds of pilot versions are being tried, there are all kinds of teams that work together, that think about these pilot programs, but we have not seen and we have not been informed that in the end we should know that there is something going on in this sense” .
Companies operating on the market of private medical services, in specialized healthcare, reported total business of 10.3 billion lei (2 billion euros) in 2022, up 13% compared to the previous year and five times more than ten years ago, according to a ZF analysis based on data provided by ONRC. More precisely, it is the turnover of the 9,803 companies operating under CAEN code 8622 – specialized medical assistance activities.
Tags: Private Health Vlad Teodorescu managing partner Donna Medical Center from ..
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