Between-visit symptom scores and sleep trends, summarised for the psychiatrist
TL;DR Midtide is software for outpatient psychiatrists. Between visits, patients answer short standard questionnaires on a chat app and can share phone sleep and step data. Before each follow-up, the psychiatrist gets a one-page trend summary. Psychiatry clinics pay a monthly fee per active patient because it makes short visits more useful.
India has very few psychiatrists. A NIMHANS team estimated about 9,000, or 0.75 per 100,000 people, against a desirable level above 3[1]. The National Mental Health Survey era put it at 0.3 per 100,000[2]. The two figures clash, so check the primary sources. Either way follow-up visits are short and weeks apart.
The survey found treatment gaps of 85% for common mental disorders and 70.4% for bipolar disorder[3]. Even for people who do reach care, the psychiatrist often hears how the last month went from memory alone, and relapses or side effects show up late.
What it does, in regulatory terms: monitoring summaries for the treating psychiatrist. It does not diagnose, score risk automatically or suggest treatment. Under CDSCO's 2026 software guidance, tools that drive clinical decisions can count as devices, so the product shows trends and leaves the judgement to the doctor[4].
The psychiatrist picks the scales for each patient, like PHQ-9 for depression or a mood chart for bipolar disorder. Midtide sends them by chat app every week or two in English or a regional language. With consent, the patient's phone shares sleep timing and step counts. A crisis answer triggers a fixed message with the Tele-MANAS helpline and an alert to the clinic. Before each visit the doctor sees one page of trends.
The seed promised passive biomarkers and AI insights. The research says phone-sensing evidence is early but promising and nowhere near ready for clinical decisions[5], so we keep sensor data in the background and lean on validated questionnaires.
Patients benefit but clinics pay. Private psychiatrists listed on a big doctor-booking app in Bengaluru charge ₹350–1,800 per consultation[6]. A clinic fee of roughly ₹150–300 per active patient a month is our guess to test. Group practices and hospital psychiatry departments are the likely first buyers, because they already have staff who can set patients up and someone who signs off on software spend.
Tele-MANAS has taken 47.75 lakh calls since October 2022[7], which tells you how much mental-health contact happens by phone now. The DPDP Rules notified in November 2025 set out consent duties[8], and the July 2026 CDSCO guidance clears up where software becomes a device[4].
We found no public figure for spending on psychiatry follow-up software in India. The narrow count is the clinician base - about 9,000 psychiatrists[1]. If 500 clinics each tracked 100 patients at ₹200 a month then that's about ₹12 Cr a year (our arithmetic on assumed prices). Treat it as a ceiling check and not a forecast.
One mental-health startup offers therapy, psychiatry, a mood tracker and self-assessments, and claims over 350 business partners[9]. Another runs psychiatry and therapy in four cities and online, with psychometric assessments[10]. Both are care providers and not tools for independent psychiatrists. A US vendor sells measurement-informed care tools to health systems and payers[11]. What's missing is a light tool for India's private psychiatry clinics.
| Difficulty | Moderate (40/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹50–90 L |
| Time to launch | 6–9 months |
Building the software is routine. The hard parts are getting busy psychiatrists to change how they run a visit, keeping patients answering after the first month and handling crisis answers safely at any hour of the night. Expect a slow, clinic-by-clinic sale that drags on for months.
Regulated. Midtide produces monitoring summaries for the psychiatrist and does not diagnose, so the rules decide how far the product can go.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI score suicide risk, suggest a diagnosis or recommend treatment. Crisis answers follow a fixed rule and go to the clinic, and the judgement stays with the psychiatrist.
Want to work out the AI layer for Midtide? Talk to Yash →
I see this as a sensible, modest business for a founder with a psychiatrist co-founder and clinic relationships. If you're chasing passive-sensing AI then look elsewhere. First prove that 60% of patients still answer at week eight and that psychiatrists open the summary before most visits.
Plan for roughly ₹50–90 L, mostly on product, clinical advice and a slow clinic-by-clinic sale.
There's no single licence, but CDSCO's 2026 device software guidance, the Telemedicine Practice Guidelines and the DPDP Act all apply. Keep it to trends, not diagnosis.
Yes, short visits are a problem in many countries. Device software rules and health data laws differ, so check with the local regulator before you sell.
The free Midtide validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the device-software, telemedicine and data-protection checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for psychiatrists and patients, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Midtide or something close to it? The make-or-break work is keeping patients answering and building a crisis path clinics trust, and I'm glad to help you work through both. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.