MOBILE health-care provider Comfy Home Medical Services Limited is looking to widen its client base as it taps into the market for home health care.

Launched in 2021 to service mainly COVID-19 patients from the comfort of their homes, the business which to date has grown to see hundreds of patients across some four parishes — mainly on the northern end of the island — is now looking to double down on home health care opportunities in the Kingston Metropolitan Region and other unpenetrated areas.

“We are still very much a fairly new type of business, as such our aim is to get more buy-in from the local market for home medical treatment. After witnessing a slowdown in the numbers we did monthly during COVID we want to now grow above the current 5-10 patients to as much as 30-40 that we see monthly within the short to medium term,” CEO and co-founder of Comfy Home Dr Kirk Jones said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

“With our latest entry into the Corporate Area we have started to get the calls so things have started to pick up — but we are not yet at the place we want to be,” he further told Sunday Finance

‘We’re not yet at the place where we can service all parishes, but with our recent launch in Kingston and St Catherine we want to pick up more clients and grow the business in such a way that we can in the near future have a stronger client base with patients all over the island, and not just in St James, St Ann and Trelawny. The roll-out of our new website will also help with this,” Jones added while also mulling future partnerships with the Government as the entiity also pursues public sector support.

The business — largely funded via loan and shareholders’ equity — the CEO said is largely made up of a team of medical and other professionals, with a number of contracted services, including laboratory and ambulance component, available through third-party arrangements.

“We currently partner with Mid Lab to do blood testing for us, and Medic One First Responders for ambulance services. With these partnerships what we seek to do is to remove the hassle, offering clients the ability to book a doctor from home. We also subcontract a number of specialist doctors who [are] assigned based on the nature of the complaint or diagnosed illness,” he added.

“Catering to the young and old, we have in place a very professional and highly trained team of mobile medical practitioners,” Jones said, noting a staff complement of some 10-15 doctors on call and a resident full-time nurse.

“While home visits for health care already take place to some extent, they are not as commercial as we think they should be and this is what Comfy Home, through the services we offer, aims to do. Through our business we want to service the gaps in this market as, having been in the industry for a while, we have seen first hand where there is the need for this type of service and we are now moving to capitalise on it,” he stated.

The doctors, whom he said are paid at rates per patient, are normally assigned based on location and confirmed bookings. The average cost for which clients can have a doctor treat them in the privacy of their homes, examine, and prescribe the requisite medication, he said starts at $20,000 for a general check-up and amounts range upwards in cases where additional services are needed.

Following the recent launch of its new interactive website, the company’s directors said they were making the necessary investments needed to strengthen operations and increase access to its services.

The website, offering options for home consultation bookings, allows patients to access a number of other services including telemedicine and personalised health monitoring.

“The website also allows patients to overcome geographical challenges that might prevent them from accessing the highest-quality care. In simple terms, a patient from deep rural St Elizabeth or St Thomas will now have access to a medical specialist in St Ann or Kingston without leaving the comfort of their homes.

“Additionally, there is the benefit of reducing wait times and resource limitations that are often synonymous with visiting a hospital or clinic,” the directors said at a launch event held at The UWI Regional Headquarters last week.