Insurers have a lot to contribute towards cost effective healthcare

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed health and wellbeing to the forefront of consumers' concerns and there is an urgent need for cost-effective healthcare backed by insurance, said speakers on the opening day yesterday of the Virtual Asia Conference on Healthcare and Health Insurance.

In his opening address, Mr Thomas Dijohn, dacadoo senior vice president-Asia Pacific, said that insurers have responded to the pandemic by boosting their traditional medical and life cover with an array of digital health or wellness products and services.

He added that digital is now the default mode of customer engagement. To stay on top of the game, insurers have to establish quickly a strong presence across the digital health ecosystem. “Implementing digital health services not only boosts consumer engagement, but also allows users to lead healthier lifestyles,” he said.

Future trends in healthcare

Highlighting the megatrends in digital healthcare insurance, Mr Tony Estrella, managing director of Taliossa and podcast host for FutureProofing Healthcare & Digital Health Today, said that technology and data innovation will change how human behaviour is modelled and risk assessed. He said that insurance companies are today increasingly adopting new key performance indicators and, in the future, there will be some deep and trusted relationships that will be built on the basis of health outcomes.

“In future, there will be instances of cheaper interventions available that will reduce the cost of treatment and result in lower claims payouts for insurers,” he said. Mentioning chronic disease management, he said that there needs to be collaboration between different stakeholders in effectively handling this segment.

Blockchain can address inequities in healthcare

PwC Global Health insurance practice leader Joydeep Roy in his presentation said that blockchain is a totally new architecture that provides new capabilities in addressing healthcare inequities. He highlighted that people have to be educated through campaigns to make them understand the severity and immutability of data and audit trails that exist in blockchain. “Adoption has to lead, along with concerted efforts by the insurance industry, to educate people and for this to happen, collaboration is the key,” he said.

COVID-19 a wake-up call for health sector

Medix Group president Sigal Atzmon Lidar said that the COVID-19 pandemic is a wake up call for the health sector as well as an opportunity. She highlighted that existing healthcare institutions will slowly fade out as new business models with better and more efficient care emerge.

“Thousands of startups, as well as today’s data giants have entered this lucrative multi trillion-dollar healthcare industry with new business models that dematerialise, demonetise and democratise today’s bureaucratic and inefficient system,” she said. She felt that over the next 15 years, more and more governments and public systems will privatise healthcare and, in such a scenario, private health insurers will play a significantly bigger role.

The two-day event, which has as its theme, "Cost-effective Healthcare and HealthTech Solutions in the Pandemic-induced Work-from-Home Era", is sponsored by dacadoo.

Source: Asia Insurance Review