Test your Health with a Click- Mylabyogi.com brings Pathological Tests Online

DailyStuff.org interviewed Novella Lawrence (COO) and Aneesh Khanna (CEO), Founders of Mylabyogi.com about their wonderful service for providing a portal to book your health checkups online and at your convenience. The service is currently available in Mumbai city. We are grateful to the founders for providing insightful details of their venture. Lets have a look what Mylabyogi.com has to offer :

DailyStuff.org: First of all, we would like to ask you, how did you come up with this innovative idea? Who were the initial members in your team when starting up? 

Mylabyogi.com: We wanted to set up an organization that empowers customers with choice and convenience, while delivering a surprisingly refreshing and standardized quality of customer care in the healthcare/Diagnostics segment.
We also realized that there are a lot of quality and reputed laboratories in the major metros across the city, who would like to partner with a young service provider like us. These laboratories have a good brand name in their 4-5 km radius area, have customer patronage from the area and have build a reputation over many years. However these laboratories lacked access to customers outside their catchment area and also lacked sales/marketing expertise. Mylabyogi thus becomes a suitable partner for such laboratories.

We have a young team of 12 employees in Mumbai, out of which 7 employees are technicians and logistics officers. We intend to ramp up the field team to between 15-20 employees within the next 6-8 months.
Our Quality and Processes dept is headed by Dr Smitha Gawde, who is a PhD in Human Genetics with a Post Doctoral from University of Cincinnati.

DS: How did you come up with the name: Mylabyogi ? What does yogi stand for?

MLY: We chose “Mylab” to establish a personal connection with our services and the customer’s diagnostic requirements. The word “Yogi” typically denotes a “learned one” or “a mentor”. We believe that Mylabyogi would educate customers about diagnostic tests, service providers and also provide comprehensive information on tests and diseases. In the long run, we would like Mylabyogi to be a one stop shop for all diagnostic services and related information.

DS: How does this service work? What is this service all about ? Is it free? What are the overall charges a user have to pay?

MLY: Typically the customer can book a home visit online or through our customer support cell for blood tests and ECG. The Mylabyogi technician visits the customer’s home/office at the designated time and collects the samples for testing. The samples are transported in temperature controlled containers to the chosen lab for processing. The reports, on receipt from the lab, are uploaded to the customer’s account on Mylabyogi.com and is made available on email. The customer would be able to track the status of his samples online as well and review records of past transactions for friends and family through this login.

· We charge a flat fee of Rs 75/- for the home visit all across the city.
· The ECG at home costs Rs. 300/- which includes a report by a MD physician.

DS: What hurdles have you faced till date? and what are solutions for each one of the problems ?

MLY: Healthcare is a sensitive area, because customers lean on you for delivering a service at a time when they are unwell and need medical guidance and diagnostic tests. Our experience in the Diagnostics domain, helps us be sensitive to patient care, quality protocols, technician safety, government guidelines and partner laboratory requirements.

So far, the model is being well accepted by customers and they are thrilled with the convenience and service offered.

We are currently funded by the co-founding team’s personal funds. We do intend to raise some angel/seed capital which will propel the pace of growth and expansion across the metros.

DS: Can you please throw some light on advantages that your venture has as compared to conventional Pathological Labs? 

MLY: The level of standardized customer care, which is not dependent on the technical capability of an individual technician, but in fact on a well thought out brand with systems and processes is the USP of the Mylabyogi home visit experience. Additionally Mylabyogi is different because it offers the choice and decision of the laboratory in the hands of the customer and allows the customer to make an unbiased and democratic decision. A conventional pathology lab tends to focus more on the processing of the samples, technology and quality. They seldom have the time or the bandwidth to cater to home visits in an organized and standardized manner. Mylabyogi helps the labs bridge this service gap and hence is a natural extension for our lab partners.

DS: What are your future plans? 

MLY: The next step is to establish a strong customer base in Mumbai and expand to other cities like Pune and Bangalore within the next 3-4 months.

DS: Any new services from Mylabyogi launching soon?

MLY: Apart from Blood Tests, ECG and Health Checks at home, we are looking at providing various other home diagnostic services like X-Ray, Spirometry, PAP Smear, Doctor on Call and also would look at facilitating appointments for services like Sonography, Scans, Mammography etc.

DS: Any Message to your prospective customers? 

MLY: We would like our prospective customers to do away with the fear and the task of going to a medical facility for their health checks or diagnostic tests. They can get their diagnostics requirements met just by a click of a button by logging on to www.mylabyogi.com or calling on 90225 33888