The idea is to focus on patients who stay with the clinic for decades and return for annual health screenings, vaccinations and chronic disease management, said Mr Chim.
“This is where we make our bread and butter – by looking after people over their entire lifetime,” he said.
“People come to you three times, they like you, they trust you. What happens? They shift their entire wallet share to you. So they stop going to other clinics. They only want to come to you, so that is the nature of our business.”
The clinic will charge patients a consultation fee of S$30 on weekday mornings, S$33 on weekday nights, and S$35 on the weekends. These prices are “benchmarked very closely” to other clinics, said Mr Chim.
I-Health, which currently runs three other clinics in Singapore, plans to open its Tampines clinic between 13 and 14 hours every day, said Mr Chim.
Its clinics in Bendemeer, Yishun and Serangoon are currently open about 10.5 hours every day.
He added that the plan is to eventually have two doctors per shift at the Tampines site, with two to three shifts per day. Eventually, seeing 150 patients a day in total is “entirely possible”.
At its Bendemeer clinic, Mr Chim said that there are close to 75 to 80 patients a day.
When asked whether this could result in doctors working long hours, Mr Chim said the company’s doctors currently work about 43 to 48 hours a week.
A 2014 MOH survey found that about 31 per cent of GPs worked between 40 and 48 clinical hours a week, with 19 per cent clocking more than 48 hours.
CONFIDENT BECAUSE OF GROUNDWORK
The S$52,188 bid was one that was made after much research, said Mr Chim. There were several factors behind the decision for such a high bid, he said.
“We believe that it is a rate that we can have decent ROI (return on investment).”
For one, he pointed out that there is less competition in new Build-to-Order (BTO) estates due to the zoning of shops. In comparison, I-Health’s other locations have between eight and 10 clinics in their areas.
“Our experience is that in mature estates, competition is very high from the old doctors … If you have been going to the same doctor for 10 years, why would you switch?”
Mr Chim said that there is first-mover advantage for a clinic to establish itself in a new area, where a younger demographic is more “sensitive” to online reviews.
“If your digital marketing is good, meaning that your SEO (search engine optimisation) is good, and stuff like that, it’s quite easy to capture the customers,” he said.
“There is no barrier for them to try you out; they will search you up.”
Mr Chim also pointed out that the density of residential estates that the Tampines clinic could potentially serve exceeds that of other clinics. The Tampines unit is near five BTO projects.
“We are extremely confident, because we’ve done all the groundwork. We have seen all the different units – we didn’t bid for the other units. This is the best,” he said.
