24-hr dental care @ cheaper rates

A group of dental surgeons from different specialities on Thursday floated a public limited company, Le Forte Dental Paradigm in Chennai, with an objective to make dental care affordable and workable for the middle class.

Under the banner LFDPL, there will be a chain of 24-hour dental clinics across the country and a 24-hour helpline (044-52013355).

This helpline is mainly to avoid travelling and reduce waiting time of the patients and the chair time of the dentists in educating patients about treatment plans.

"The 24-hour clinics will aim at cutting down the cost for the patients, without loss for the company, as dental goods and lab fees will be bulk purchased to create a win-win situation for the patient-dentist-seller," director, finance, LFDPL, Dr Balamurugan said.

The company has signed a memorandum of understanding with credit card division of HDFC Bank to help its patients get an interest free EMI scheme for treatment.

The company is also in discussion with ABN Amro Bank, which is expected to be finalised shortly.

"To counter the factors of high cost and unaffordability in dental care, we, a  group of surgeons conducted periodic brainstorming sessions and out of repeated attempts, this idea of floating a limited company and 24-hour dental clinic was born," director, resources and resolutions, LFDPL, Dr S K Mukilan said.

The investment for this venture was between Rs 50 lakh and Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) he said adding, this model would also create shareholding opportunities for the partnering dentists and partners from similar field of practice.