CureBay is a hybrid health technology platform founded in 2021 by Priyadarshi Mahapatra, a former Director at Google Cloud, along with Shobhan Mahapatra and US-based entrepreneur Sanjay Swain. Conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic, CureBay was established to address a persistent and structural gap in India’s healthcare system—the lack of timely, affordable, and dignified primary healthcare for rural and tribal populations, particularly in eastern India. The founders, all raised in Odisha, were motivated by first-hand experiences of healthcare disruption during the pandemic and long-standing inequities between urban and rural healthcare access.

At its core, CureBay combines a digital telemedicine backbone with a physical network of eClinics located in underserved rural geographies. The model integrates AI-enabled care coordination (marketed as CareSathi, a 24×7 digital health companion), on-ground clinical infrastructure, and partnerships with doctors, hospitals, laboratories, and pharmacies. This hybrid approach was designed to overcome a key limitation of conventional telemedicine—digital consultations without local follow-up for diagnostics, medicines, or basic screening.

Technology and Care Model

CureBay’s platform aggregates multiple components of the healthcare ecosystem into a single, interoperable system. Through CareSathi, patients or clinic staff can initiate consultations, triage symptoms, and coordinate care in real time. Patients walk into eClinics—small, strategically located physical centres within a 5–10 km radius of villages—where trained nurses and pharmacists conduct preclinical assessments such as blood pressure measurement, blood glucose testing, ECGs, and other basic diagnostics.

Following this, patients are connected to qualified doctors via video consultation, typically within 10 minutes. Doctors issue e-prescriptions, after which medicines are dispensed locally or delivered to patients’ homes, often within three hours. Diagnostic tests are either conducted on-site or arranged through partner laboratories with doorstep sample collection. The system is designed to reduce travel time, out-of-pocket expenditure, and loss of daily wages—critical barriers to healthcare access in rural India.

Implementation and Scale

Since inception, CureBay has scaled rapidly across Odisha and parts of Chhattisgarh. As of the latest available data, the organisation operates 100+ eClinics covering a wide network of villages and small towns. It has built partnerships with 50+ doctors, 20+ hospitals, including reputed private and charitable institutions, three national laboratory chains, and two state-level diagnostics providers. The platform also connects with pharmacies to ensure last-mile medicine delivery.

CureBay charges a standard consultation fee of ₹100 per patient, significantly lower than private urban consultations and comparable to informal providers in rural areas, while offering qualified medical care. Importantly, the model also supports patients requiring secondary or tertiary care by assisting with referrals, hospital selection, documentation, and travel planning—functioning as a longitudinal “family physician” system rather than episodic care.

Impact and Outcomes

CureBay has provided healthcare services to 1,00,000+ patients, addressing an estimated 70–80% of basic primary healthcare needs in its operational areas. Earlier pilots reported 15,000+ patients served through 20 clinics across nine districts, indicating consistent scale-up over time. By reducing dependence on unqualified practitioners and unsupervised antibiotic use, the model directly contributes to safer clinical practices and mitigates risks such as antibiotic resistance.

Patient outcomes include improved management of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension, reduced monthly healthcare expenditure, and improved patient experience through longer consultations and health education. The proximity of eClinics has also reduced travel-related costs, long queues at district hospitals, and wage losses for daily workers.

Relevance for India’s Healthcare System

CureBay demonstrates how hybrid, AI-enabled primary care models can complement India’s public health infrastructure, particularly in regions with severe human resource shortages. With rural areas housing nearly two-thirds of India’s population but less than one-third of its health workforce, scalable models like CureBay can extend the reach of qualified doctors without replacing existing government systems.

By aligning digital health, physical infrastructure, and community-based delivery, CureBay offers a replicable framework for strengthening primary healthcare, supporting universal health coverage, and advancing national priorities such as digital health integration and equitable access. As India seeks to improve healthcare outcomes in rural and tribal regions, models like CureBay illustrate how technology-driven, locally grounded solutions can deliver measurable impact at scale.