Global Health, which operates the hospital chain Medanta, expects complex specialities, new services, new hospitals, cost optimisation and higher tariffs to boost its operating profit margins in the coming quarters as non-Covid hospital admissions return to normal.

Medanta chairman Naresh Trehan said there is a shift in trend from Covid-19 years, as there is less contribution from internal medicine and an increase in cases from complex specialities.

“We are seeing more and more complicated cases, which is driving growth… Also, the new facilities like Lucknow and Patna are all ramping up well,” he said.

Lucknow facility will become Medanta’s second-biggest hospital with 900 beds after its Gurgram flagship with 1,391 operational beds. Patna Medanta is proposed to have a capacity of 650 beds.

The hospital chain is also considering tariff increases in the coming days, along with undertaking cost optimisation initiatives on the manpower and material side, officials said. “Over the course of the last couple of years, the company hasn’t taken any tariff increase…(hence) some amount of tariff increase is expected,” Pankaj Sahni, group CEO and director of Medanta, told ET.

“We always maintained that performance, which is in the range of 22-25% Ebitda margins, is a really very good performance. We don’t see any reason why Medanta would not be able to deliver that kind of performance,” Sahni said.

Trehan said medical tourism is set to pick up and it hasn’t yet reached the pre-pandemic levels.“We are getting much more traction now from our agencies around the world,” he said. “So, I’m sure this will actually culminate in a much, much better inflow of patients as we move forward.”.

According to Trehan, medical tourism currently contributes 6-7% of Medanta’s revenue against 10-12% before the pandemic.

The chain had in November last year raised about 2,205 crore in its initial public offering (IPO), including 500 crore in a fresh issue.

Besides Lucknow and Patna, Medanta is also setting up a 550-bed greenfield multi-speciality quaternary care hospital in Noida and has signed an operation and management (O&M) agreement to establish a 300-bed hospital in Indore. These two facilities would take 2-3 years to become operational, officials said. The company is adding 700 beds across its existing hospitals.

Sahni said Medanta added 170 new beds across its network in nine months ended December. As on December 31, it had 2,571 beds in its network. The company has also added over 130 specialist doctors, including Dr Randeep Guleria, former director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi to head its internal, respiratory and sleep medicine department.

It also launched a mother and child speciality in its Gurugram and Lucknow hospitals and started home care services, diagnostic division and primary clinics.

Its matured hospitals including Gurugram, Ranchi and Indore contribute over two-thirds of Medanta’s revenue.