Private medicine is a very specific market, where it is extremely difficult to stay without relevant experience and knowledge. If you do not have medical education and practice working in a public or private medical institution – the choice is obvious: acquire a franchise.
The first step is to decide whether you will start your own business in laboratory diagnostics from scratch or work on a franchise model. An important note: the diagnostic center does not do the research on its own – this requires a full-fledged laboratory complex, which is unlikely to be opened to a novice entrepreneur alone.
But to open the Center, in which the biomaterial will be taken for analysis, its transfer to the laboratory and delivery of the results to the client is quite realistic. The diagnostic center can also provide related services: doctors’ reception, instrumental studies (ultrasound, for example), etc.
Deputy General Director for Commerce of the Helix Laboratory Service
Useful for the future entrepreneur will visit the existing diagnostic centers, best of all – as a client. This is how you can get a complete picture of the business that you plan to open.
The next step, which will need to be done in any case – whether you open the center yourself or franchise – to find a room for a diagnostic center.
Daria Goryakina
Deputy General Director for Commerce of the Helix Laboratory Service
The site is one of the key factors in the success of the diagnostic center. The right choice will allow you to reduce advertising costs, get high patient flow, quickly reach the payback and return on investment.
In parallel with the search for premises, it is possible to start legalizing a legal entity (usually a LLC). If you are opening a business for a franchise, at the same time you should send a package of documents (a commercial concession contract and other contracts and agreements) for acquaintance.
Investment size
The final amount of investment depends on the region in which the Center is opened, as well as whether the entrepreneur plans to limit himself only to laboratory diagnostics services or is going to introduce additional types of medical services (doctors’ reception, instrumental studies, etc.). On average, it is 3 to 3.5 million rubles, of which about 1.5 million goes for equipment, 1 million for repair of a building, the rest for related costs (legal, advertising, etc.).
In addition to the costs of equipment and supplies needed directly for the provision of services, as well as those stipulated by the relevant standards and norms (an approximate list is given below), it is also necessary to plan for spending on furniture and equipment for administrative premises (the desk and administrator’s workstation, sofa or armchairs , plasma panel, mirror, children’s corner for waiting area, dispensers and containers for shoe covers, water cooler, shelves for biomaterial). Do not forget about equipping the staff room.
In the event that specialists in the diagnostic center are supposed to consult specialists, the list of equipment, consumables and furniture, and accordingly – and costs – will increase.
