Private hospital operator Mitra Keluarga Karyasehat is looking to tighten its belt to maintain profitability amid slowing growth in the number of patients, as people opt for state-sponsored healthcare services.

Mitra Keluarga finance director Joyce Vidyayanti said her company was able to book double-digit net profit growth during the first quarter. However, its top line growth has been slightly strained since the first quarter of last year.

'€œWe are going to cut spending from every possible line, including from medical staff [recruitment] and equipment procurement. In every investment we make to add more patients, increasing the number of staff and machinery will not be as much,'€ she said.

Mitra Keluarga, she said, historically booked around 18 to 20 percent annual growth in its revenue. But the growth had been diluted ever since the government'€™s universal healthcare program started
in early 2014.

The company booked around 12 percent year-on-year (yoy) growth in its top line during the first quarter of last year, and the growth further decreased to 9.83 percent yoy during the first three months of this year.

Mitra Keluarga recorded Rp 541.29 billion (US$40.69 million) in revenue between January and March this year.

The company'€™s bottom line grew by 15 percent to Rp 145.08 billion during the first quarter of the year.

In comparison, the hospital operator saw its full-year net profits up by nearly 30 percent to Rp 517
billion in 2014.

The slowing growth, she said, was attributed to the introduction of the universal healthcare program, which had led patients to shift to hospitals that accepted the government'€™s insurance program.

Mitra Keluarga'€™s patient growth was halved to around 4 percent yoy between January and March this year, in contrast to around 7 to 8 percent annual growth booked in the same period last year.

Joyce said that Mitra Keluarga, which caters to patients from middle- to upper-income brackets, did not accept patients using the universal healthcare program, except for patients with emergency conditions.

For now, the hospital has no plan to welcome in-patients on government healthcare services.

'€œOur occupancy rate has hit around 60 to 70 percent and we do not yet have sufficient infrastructure to handle surges of [universal healthcare program] patients,'€ she said.

'€œBut we have nothing to worry about because we believe that patients will opt for hospitals that offer quality services.'€

Joyce said her company hoped the government would create a co-benefit program, allowing patients to pay hospital treatment with a combination of insurance.

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