Fibe (formerly known as EarlySalary) one of India’s leading consumer lending platform has entered into a strategic partnership with Narayana Health, India’s leading multi-speciality healthcare provider to offer low-cost and no-cost medical expense loan of up to ₹10 lacs for all elective and non-elective treatments on EMI under the CareNow PayLater proposition. Patients and caregivers under this proposition, can now seamlessly avail of loan for healthcare emergencies within minutes with a repayment tenure of 3 months to 2 years. The scheme is also applicable to those with no lending history.
Healthcare financing has been a challenge in our country. According to a research report by Niti Aayog’s on Indian healthcare sector, only 30%-35% patients in India undergo surgery compared to 60%-65% of their global counterparts and similarly 15%-20% of undergo radiation therapy as against 40%-50% globally – these figures clearly indicate the challenges faced by Indian patients in terms of healthcare awareness, access to treatment and healthcare financing. Furthermore, WHO data also indicates that India accounts for nearly 21% of global disease burden.
In such a scenario, it is critical that healthcare providers along with finance and insurance players come together to offer comprehensive lending solutions for the mass market healthcare customers. This partnership between Fibe and Narayana Health is an effort in that direction and is expected to ease challenges faced by many patients and their caregivers.
On the partnership, Mr. Amol Maheshwari, Chief Distribution Officer, Fibe said, “With this strategic partnership, Fibe’s Health arm & Narayana Health would enable millions of Indians to afford best-in-class healthcare services. At Fibe, it’s our mission to ensure that every Indian gets first-class healthcare treatment and shouldn’t live through the stress of finances. We anticipate that through this partnership with Narayana Health, we would take Affordable Healthcare to all consumer segments creating a great value proposition for the society.”
Mr. Ashish Bajaj, Chief Marketing Officer, Narayana Health added, “Narayana Health for over two decades has been working towards making quality healthcare accessible to all. Our partnership with Fibe will further boost this vision and help patients and caregivers have easy access to affordable healthcare financing. Every year we treat over 2.5+ million patients through our network of 23 hospitals and 7 heart centres across 14 cities in India and we are confident that this partnership will benefit all those who have trusted Narayana Health for their healthcare needs.”
Adding further, Mr. Atul Bhatnagar, Group Head- Payor Relations, Narayana Health said, “Access to finance is a big concern for many Indians especially for those who don’t plan for future uncertainties. This is irrespective of their socio-economic status despite rising awareness. If not planned well, it can impact peoples savings and earnings lifelong at the family level. Our partnership with Fibe is just the beginning of bringing access to healthcare financing at a nominal cost. Narayana Health is known for its efforts in assisting patients when in need through various interventions and we will continue to work with external partners to further add on to the solutions in the coming future as well.”
To avail the loan, the patient or the caregiver availing the loan must be a resident of India, between 21-55 years of age with a minimum salary of ₹15,000. The entire process takes just minutes to complete and requires basic documents like KYC details, PAN, and bank account statements.
