How much does it cost to open a medical center?
Ukrainian health care is now in the stage of active reform. The need for changes is due to the fact that the state is not able to maintain free medicine at the proper level. Due to the lack of budget funding, state and municipal medical institutions cannot upgrade their material and technical base, attract qualified specialists with a decent salary. For a long time they have been charging extra from their clients, thereby turning free medical care into a fiction.
But the additional payment does not solve the problem of the quality of services of budgetary clinics, but only serves as a source of “plugging holes” and all sorts of abuses.
Against this background, in Ukraine there is a demand for high-quality medical services, which are currently only able to provide private clinics.
The market of medical services in Ukraine consists of three parts: budget financing, additional payments for medical services by clients and private medical services. The first two components tend to decrease, while private medicine gradually increases its share.
The volume of the medical services market in 2015-2016, UAH billion
* Pro-Consulting estimate according to the State Budget and the World Bank
This dynamics suggests that more and more patients are choosing private clinics, where they can receive high-level care for their money.
This process will intensify over the next two years. According to the plans of the reformers, from 2020 direct state funding of most state and municipal medical institutions will be terminated, which will lead to the closure of some of them, especially those located in sparsely populated areas. Some medical services included in the package, which will be annually approved by the state, will remain free. The rest will be paid either by health insurance or by customers.
In this case, the competitiveness of private clinics will increase, since public medicine, on the basis of which a new healthcare structure is being created, will not be able to quickly reorganize to provide high-quality services.
Therefore, the launch of a new private clinic on the market right now is timely and promising.
In order for the medical institution to be successful, analysts from the consulting company Pro-Consulting give some practical advice:
1. It is necessary to develop a business plan for the center.
2. Think carefully about its location. For example, a medical center is best located in a location that will provide the flow of patients necessary for its successful operation. For this, the area of one of the new residential complexes is suitable, where there is a developed transport infrastructure, a large number of residents with a sufficient level of income and no competitors.
3. The institution must work on weekdays from 8:00 to 20:00 and on Saturday from 10:00 to 18:00. It will be a big plus if it will be possible to consult with such doctors as a general practitioner, obstetrician-gynecologist, dermatologist, gastroenterologist, otolaryngologist; perform ultrasound and x-ray studies, laboratory diagnostics.
4. To conduct laboratory research, it is desirable for the clinic to attract a narrow-profile organization, through which to equip the laboratory and provide it with specialists. This approach will reduce costs and ensure the profitability of this type of service at the level of 50%.
If you open a medical center that meets all of the above requirements, then the total cost of the project, according to Pro-Consulting estimates, will be about $60,000. The invested amount will pay off within two years.
