I am an optometrist and how I can start an eye hospital

Hello aspirant,

You can start a hospital either by buying an existing facility and converting it in a hospital (brownfield) or by building a new hospital (greenfield). You may also buy an existing hospital, up for sale and start running it directly.

For building a new hospital, you will have to abide by several regulations, some important ones are national building codes (in recent edition, specific rules related to hospitals has been added), fire safety norms of the local area, building ratios as given by local municipal corporation and electricity regulation. Once you have got clearance under all applicable laws, you will finally get a building occupancy certificate, which means you can make it operational now.

Then comes its equipping part. Depending upon equipment you will have to comply with its regulation. For example for imaging department, you need to have AERB clearance, for lifts - lift and escalator act, for boilers - boiler act and so on.

In fact you will have to take help of consultants to fulfill all regulatory requirements.

Regarding running (operations) expenses, there are a lot of expenses which you will incur.

Of total cost, about 30–40% in staff salary

about 20–30% in medicine and inventory

remaining in building management, electricity etc.

The margins in indian hospitals are low. You can make about 15–20% profit after few years. Superspeciality like cardiology and cancer care are most revenue generating but also most expensive to offer. From departments, pharmacy and diagnostics are the most revenue generating areas.

Infact staring a hospital in India is very complex and you will need to take help of few consultants related to this field, who already have some experience with this.

Update - If you are planning to start a hospital, it is very important to know about the cost of running a hospital. I have a blogpost on ‘How much does it cost to run a hospital’, which can be helpful for new entrants in hospital business. The link to the blog is given in my profile section.

Those who wish to start hospital should be wary of the recent developments in Nation's policies, health schemes which are causing reduced margins of profits.

Hope this helps you

Feel free to ask any questions

All the best for your future