Balancing Cost, Care, and Continuity
Divesh Mahendra Parekh
Head Finance
Clinical Diagnostic Centre
Balancing Cost, Care, and Continuity
Divesh Mahendra Parekh
Head Finance
Clinical Diagnostic Centre
Precision in healthcare is often associated with clinical excellence, yet the systems that sustain it are equally financial in nature. As diagnostics expand across geographies and affordability becomes a defining factor, the role of finance has moved far beyond reporting into shaping access, efficiency, and long-term value. Divesh Mahendra Parekh, Head of Finance at Clinical Diagnostic Centre, represents this evolution. With over two decades of experience spanning financial markets, education, and healthcare, his journey reflects a deep understanding of how capital, cost, and care intersect. From early exposure to risk assessment at Total Securities to scaling operations at Future Education and now leading financial strategy in diagnostics, he has consistently focused on building systems that balance discipline with impact. During an exclusive conversation with TradeFlock, he shared deeper insights into this evolving role and its implications for the future of healthcare.
How has the role of finance leaders in healthcare evolved over the years?
The biggest misconception is that finance in healthcare is still about control. That version of the role is long gone.
What has really changed is the point of involvement. Earlier, finance stepped in after decisions were made. Today, it sits at the table when decisions are being shaped. That shift alone changes everything.
Experience across securities and education made this clearer to me. Understanding risk in capital markets and scalability in education led me to see the healthcare finance leader as a “Growth Architect.” The role is no longer about tracking revenue but about understanding where value is created and sustained. That also introduces a more complex responsibility. Financial discipline cannot come at the cost of patient outcomes. The challenge now is to make both work together, ensuring that financial health is not separate from, but directly tied to, patient and community impact.
How has ABDM influenced your revenue cycle and financial agility?
Operational inefficiencies in healthcare often go unnoticed, especially in routine processes like patient registration and billing. Small inaccuracies at that stage used to cascade into delayed payments and stretched working capital cycles.
ABDM changes that equation quite fundamentally. The simplest way to understand it is as a “UPI moment for health data.” Identity verification becomes instant, data accuracy improves at the source, and claims move through the system without repeated corrections.
The financial implications of this shift are far more significant than they appear. Payment cycles shrinking from weeks to days directly improves liquidity, reducing the need for large working capital buffers. That release of capital creates room for expansion and capability upgrades. Efficiency at the front end translates into financial flexibility at the back end.
How do you approach investments across technology, security, and human capital?
Decisions around investment often appear to be about trade-offs, but in reality, they are about alignment. Security, for instance, cannot be viewed as an expense in a digital healthcare environment. It serves as a “license to operate,” especially when handling sensitive patient data and cloud-based systems.
A “Defence-in-Depth” approach allows agility and security to coexist, whether through hybrid cloud infrastructure, controlled access frameworks, or immutable audit trails. Strong systems create the confidence to move faster, not slower.
At the same time, long-term value is rarely created by infrastructure alone. The belief that “Hardware depreciates, but talent appreciates” has held true across industries. Machines provide capability, but people determine how effectively that capability is used.
Framing it simply, infrastructure delivers stability, while talent creates differentiation. Sustained growth comes from investing in both, with the understanding that people ultimately unlock the full value of every asset deployed.
How are you ensuring affordability in Tier 2/3 markets without compromising quality?
The real constraint in Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets is not demand. It is trust. People will spend on healthcare if they believe in the outcome. Affordability in diagnostics carries a very different weight, where even a single error can have serious consequences. A missed diagnosis is not a margin issue; it is a life-altering outcome, and that reality forces a different kind of financial thinking.
Learning from scaling models in education, the focus shifted toward designing systems that can expand access without diluting quality. That is where the “High-Volume, Shared-Infrastructure” model becomes effective. Centralising advanced equipment in hubs while extending reach through spokes allows both utilisation efficiency and wider coverage.
Alongside this, micro-insurance and “Sachet-Size” subscription models create predictability on both sides. Patients are not burdened with one-time costs, and the business benefits from steady cash flow. The objective remains clear: access should expand, but trust in diagnostics must remain uncompromised.
How do you navigate compliance across fragmented and evolving regulations?
Trying to “keep up” with regulation is a losing game. The landscape moves too frequently, and fragmentation makes it difficult to rely on standard playbooks.
A more sustainable approach has been to step above the baseline and operate with “Over-Compliance.” It removes the need to constantly adjust to minimum thresholds. Instead, the system is designed to meet the highest standard by default.
This is not just about avoiding penalties. It is about reducing uncertainty. When compliance is embedded into systems through geo-tagged and regulation-aware ERP frameworks, execution becomes consistent regardless of location.
Over time, this approach stops feeling like an added layer of effort. It becomes part of how the organisation functions, quietly protecting against financial leakage, reputational risk, and operational disruption.
