Google Tanslate

Select Language

Sign up and be the first to know

About Hugh Terry & The Digital Insurer

Hugh Terry & The Digital Insurer Video

Contact Us

1 Scotts Road
#24-10 Shaw Centre
Singapore 228208

Write an article

Get in touch with the editor Martin Kornacki

email your ideas at [email protected]

Pre Registration Popup

itcasia2020 Registration Popup

Share Popup

Prime Member: Find out more

Access a unique programme!
  • 56 pre recorded lesson of online content from industry experts over 7 courses
  • The best in digital insurance for practitioners and by practtioners
  • Online MCQ after each lesson
  • Join the discussion forum and make new friends
  • Certificate upon completion to show your expertise and comitment
  • 3 months to complete
  • Normal price US$1,400 Your Prime member price is US$999
  • Access to future versions included in your Prime membership!
Become a member

Prime Member: Contact Us

Reach out to us. Please fill up the form below
Let us know how we can help. You can expect a response within 24 hours
Services of interest
Untitled

Arthur D. Little

Arthur D. Little has been at the forefront of innovation since 1886. We are an acknowledged thought leader in linking strategy, innovation and transformation in technology-intensive and converging industries. We enable our clients to build innovation capabilities and transform their organizations. ADL is present in the most important business centers around the world. We are proud to serve most of the Fortune 1000 companies, in addition to other leading firms and public sector organizations. For further information, please visit www.adlittle.com

Global trends in digital health insurance: Driving better health outcomes for an ageing world

View Newsletter

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed society both at home and in the workplace. Though the long-term implications have yet to be assessed, the pandemic has had an influence on the mindset of society – certainly in the developed world. At the same time technology is changing our relationship to both time and the workplace more than has ever happened since the industrial revolution. It is also having a fundamental affect on how we interact with healthcare, and by extension with health insurance.

Home working has transformed work culture, where humans, increasingly shackled to technology, are seeking to throw off their yoke and allow technology to achieve its oft stated aim: to make life easier. Workers across the world have decided in their hundreds of millions that they would prefer to work to live, rather than live to work, sparking the ‘Great Resignation’ and a tightening of labour markets around the world.

This attitudinal shift among consumers has been towards healthcare, and in particular health insurance. Social healthcare systems are struggling to recover from the pandemic, and many failed to implement remote services as effectively as some insurers were able to service their customers.

This has generated a new interest in a more flexible means of consuming healthcare, also driven by an increased awareness of health risks among individuals and businesses. This has driven up demand for private health cover, not least in emerging markets, particularly Asia.

Key drivers

Some of the key trends developing within health insurance are not new. They are grounded in the broadly acknowledged tenet of 21st century insurance: that for incumbent insurers to be relevant in an increasingly digital world requires them to be digital themselves.

This has taken on a greater resonance since January 2020. And while there’s still a long way to go, there have been radical shifts in levels of transformation to provide digital health insurance.

Change is accelerating the move towards transforming process and operational change within organisations with complete digitisation and automation all the way from customer experience right through to operational processes.

These have been driven by a number of key themes:

  • Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming claim management, and will allow real-time claims processing, reducing errors and fraud, while improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. Customers may prefer to speak to people, but chatbots are becoming increasingly popular ways of driving up customer service standards.
  • Machine learning is essential to the efficient management of vast data sources, predictive analysis and the general automation of various processes. This includes customer support, underwriting, policy servicing, claims analysis, fraud prevention and support, which can all be improved with the effective application of machine learning.
  • Blockchain: The trouble with data, especially when there’s so much of it, is security. Nowhere is privacy more important than with health records. And blockchain is being used to ease access to data, while improving verification, security and scalability.

These are the essential technologies for driving healthcare insurance if there is to be seamless integration between cover and provision.

Held back by paper shackles

However, while 21st century medicine reaps the benefits of modern research capabilities – including the use of AI and machine learning – it is a house built on sand. Or, perhaps more precisely, paper.

Even the most advanced national healthcare systems are burdened by excessive paperwork, duplication of effort and a lack of integration. Major initiatives in the US, European Union, the UK, and even Russia, have failed to achieve their intended aims.

Estonia is the only nation to have unilaterally decided to adopt electronic health records and consign paper to the recycle bin of history.

There will always be structural problems, such as paper record keeping, but regulation has been blamed for slow progress with medical records, largely on the basis of data protection.

It is essential that medical records are accurate, and so only those who create a record are entitled to amend or update it. This creates considerable friction in the system, that might be overcome with the combination of AI, ML and blockchain, and a modern transportability of data based around consumer consent, as has been developed within European banking with the PSD2 regulations.

In Europe, some governments are reviewing how to make healthcare records more efficient, but even here, the approach is disjointed and lacks integration.

Remote is working

One of the successes of the insurance industry, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, was the growth of telemedicine, which was an innovation too far for many social healthcare systems.

Telemedicine has expanded to provide health care remotely. Not just in the digital sense, but for those who live in a remote location who may now receive high quality medical care the like of which has not been available before. But efficient transfer of data is required for these services to become truly scalable.

Scalability offers opportunities to insurers beyond market share within a specific demographic. It makes it not only possible – but potentially economically viable – to offer products into lower income markets with micro insurance and mutual risk pools by stripping out administration costs.

This allows insurers to make use of insurer tech to deliver more innovative health insurance products that will simply deliver better coverage, and thereby achieve greater penetration to markets that are currently underserved. This is where we are likely to see increased interest from governments, keen to engage the insurance industry in providing gap cover for their creaking healthcare systems.

The same old story

All nations, whether developed or emerging markets, are facing the same structural challenges. Their populations are, thanks largely to improved healthcare and diet, living longer. This has clear implications for social security systems, as older populations require greater social and medical intervention, increasing demand for support in the areas of life cover, pensions and health insurance.

This shortfall will be particularly acute in emerging markets, currently seen as the engine of global growth. According to World Health Organisation data, by 2050, 80% of older people will be living in low and medium income countries.

This pace of ageing is also accelerating. In 2020, there were more people over the age of 60 than there were under the age of five. And yet between 2015 and 2050, this number of over 60s will increase from 12% of the world’s population to 22%. That’s almost double. And the number of over 80s will triple between 2020 and 2050, reaching 426 million.

To put that in perspective, that would place the world’s over 80s in a population only exceeded by India and China, based on projected population data for 2050.

These nations are particularly at risk from the effects of climate change, placing increased pressure on chronic and critical illness treatments.

Adoption of innovation within the healthcare space has traditionally been slow. Painstaking research and development takes time and it costs money. Regulatory bodies need to know the treatments are safe, and medical companies need a return on investment, if they are to continue serving the market.

The appeal of digital health innovation is that it can deliver improved services to patients while reducing costs immediately.

In the United States, healthcare is the third largest industry worth more than $800 billion in 2021. Despite spending more on healthcare than any other country – 19.7% of GDP in 2020, generating revenues in excess of $1.2 trillion – it is considered the most dysfunctional.

More than 43% of US adults have inadequate cover, while 20% cannot access the healthcare they need. This is in spite of government backed Medicare insurance and Medicaid safety net being in place.

There is a good deal of inefficiency in the system, which makes it the perfect proving ground for a number of innovations. Here is where companies like Olive AI and Babylon Health have been helping hospitals navigate the data fog since 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Greater devotion to patients

One of the reasons healthcare can be so painful to access at the point of need, is because its delivery is so disjointed.

Devoted Health has developed an ‘all in one’ healthcare service based on Medicare Advantage policies, the private sector version of the state scheme. By placing the customer at the heart of the process, its platform brings the care package to the point of access, rather than pushing the patient from pillar to post. Not only has this resulted in high approval ratings from its customer base, but its approach is having noticeable clinical impact.

More than 85% of members with diabetes had regained control of their blood sugars, with an average reduction in their HbA1c of 2.3 in under four months. More than 77% of members had reduced their high blood pressure. The average reduction in systolic blood pressure was 15 mmHg in 40 days.

Meanwhile more than nine out of 10 members with high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and/or diabetes were consistently taking their medications as directed. A study from 2018 showed an estimate national average of around 50%.

This was not achieved simply by a more customer focused approach, but one underpinned by Devoted’s platform that relies on data analytics. The continued focus on these chronic conditions will improve not only the overall health of Devoted’s customer based, but the data will provide greater insight into  risk and demand for services.

It’s good to talk

More than half of patients cite convenience as the prime motivator for making healthcare decision. However, 96% of patients say poor customer service is their biggest complaint.

If healthcare companies cannot make it easy and seamless, customers go elsewhere. Whereas, businesses that invest in improving patient experience find their customers are 75% more loyal to them.

Talkdesk is not a healthtech, but is making use of its experience in other industries to bring together those parts of traditional healthcare that simply don’t talk to each other. It delivers cloud based call centres that use AI and machine learning to not only connect with customers, but collect invaluable insights and increase engagement.

Better all round

Service delivery is not the only place that technology can drive up standards. Tempus is using data analysis to drive greater understanding not only of treatments available to practitioners now, but providing additional insights. This includes  analysis it generates such as genomic profiling, but also pulls together disparate data such as clinical data with slide pathology, or showing which patients might be suitable for available clinical trials.

It is a system founded on AI and data analysis, but doesn’t swamp the clinician in data, rather provides curated access to data based on the relevance for specific patients or data requests.

The search for improved health is not the only area that insurtech is supporting patients. End of life care is the last function healthcare can provide, and while a company like Caris, which runs hospices in the US is solely focused on the care of an individual as they prepare for death, data analysis has a role here, too.

Data gathered from the administrative systems of hospices is being used to benchmark their quality, offering patients greater certainty of the service they may expect to receive for their last decision as a healthcare consumer, and a great comfort at the end of life.

The final analysis

Healthcare becomes increasingly important as we age. And as our global population is ageing, so demand for healthcare will increase.

The simple economic fact is that we will all have to pay more for our healthcare one way or another, and nations are looking to the insurance market for ways to ease demand on the public purse.

Recent news reports claimed that national health executives in Scotland, part of the UK where medical treatment is free at the point of need, have discussed a possible future where wealthier individuals will contribute to their treatment.

Demand for private health cover is increasing, particularly in nations where social healthcare is limited. But incumbents wishing to develop this market must be mindful of the power of the consumer.

Delays and difficulties in accessing treatment will persuade consumers to seek alternative providers if they can offer a more seamless and painless journey (see Accenture graphic below).

As that is likely to be digital, big tech and consumer brands such as supermarkets are well placed to leverage their platforms to absorb this demand. This has been seen to some extent in the US market, where large ‘high street’ brands have partnered with health providers to offer easier access to treatment.

It is the same story in healthcare as it is in other insurance sectors. Improved digitalisation will improve customer experience. But incumbents cannot rely on healthcare being a specialist area.

AI and ML are simplifying the points of connection between clinical and operational functions, so often where the relationships with the patient breaks down. If big tech builds improved ways of integrating these functions with improved communications and customer service channels, consumers will move to them, in their droves.

 

Livefest 2019 Register Popup Event

Livefest 2019 Already Registered Popup Event

Livefest 2019 Join Live Logged-in Not Registered

Livefest 2019 Join Live Not Logged-in