I want a patient to know what will happen next without learning our internal organisation chart. Clinical decisions belong to qualified professionals. My responsibility is to make the appointments, explanations, payments and delivery arrangements around those decisions work together, including when a visit does not follow the usual sequence.
Selected leadership work / 01
Explaining the visit before collecting the payment
In 2022 we reviewed billing complaints at six centres and found a recurring pattern.
I lead a diagnostics network by examining the work we leave patients and families to complete between our departments.
At Niravel Diagnostic Services, I lead 1,580 colleagues across 36 centres in six southern Indian cities. Our revenue for the year ended March 2026 was ₹286 Cr. We provide diagnostic services through qualified clinical teams; I am a commerce graduate and an operating leader, not a doctor. My responsibility is the organisation around their work: the appointment a patient can understand, the charge explained before a visit and the route by which an authorised person receives a completed report. These details can be treated as administration until a family has to resolve a failure between them.
I began in billing at Veyantara Health Services in 1998. Patients often brought us a problem whose cause belonged to another desk: an instruction they had not received, a quoted amount that did not describe the complete visit or a document nobody could locate. I could correct an entry, but I could not make the whole experience coherent from that position. Clinic administration and regional operations gave me a broader view of those handoffs. I learnt that a department can meet its own measure while leaving the next person with work it has not acknowledged.
At Niravel I have changed how we present charges, how we reserve appointment time for people who need more assistance and how we establish that a report has reached its intended recipient. Each change required us to give up a convenient internal measure. We could no longer compare booking slots without considering the visit, describe a price without its assumptions or count an uploaded report as a completed communication. I keep clinical judgement with authorised professionals. My contribution is to make the surrounding service less dependent on a patient's persistence or a receptionist's private knowledge of whom to call.
One quotation for the expected visit
At six pilot centres, we replaced a short headline price with an itemised estimate that stated included services and possible changes requiring explanation. Recorded billing complaints fell from 83 in 2,440 visits to 31 in 2,670 subsequent visits; the groups were different, so the comparison is descriptive.
Time for the person attending
An appointment-access pilot reserved longer slots for patients who requested assistance with movement or communication. It reduced the available daily slots at four centres, and we reported that capacity cost alongside arrival and waiting-time observations.
An uploaded report is not the end of the route
We examined 127 reports that had entered the patient portal without a recorded successful notification. A named service owner reconciled delivery status while clinical teams retained responsibility for the communication required by their own procedures.
Current focus
I am studying how our service works for a family arranging a visit from another city. The booking should make the sequence and practical requirements clear before travel, without asking administrative staff to interpret a clinical request.
Conversations I welcome
I would consider a non-executive contribution to a healthcare-services board where patient access and operating accountability need attention. Employer consent, commercial conflicts and the proposed time commitment would need to be resolved before any appointment.
The leadership record
Trusted with consequential decisions.
In the boardroom
Niravel Diagnostic ServicesExecutive director · January 2021–present
Formation
Bachelor of CommerceVarneshi College · 1998
Ritika brings the cost of a service decision into the same paper as its patient benefit. The appointment-access pilot was a better board discussion because the lost slots were visible, rather than hidden behind an encouraging waiting figure.
I would consider a non-executive contribution to a healthcare-services board where patient access and operating accountability need attention. Employer consent, commercial conflicts and the proposed time commitment would need to be resolved before any appointment.
