From "traffic bridging" to "value sharing": A new path for breakthrough in the third-party medical imaging industry

Internet medical service, which leverages its strength in online delivery, is becoming increasingly integrated with offline healthcare institutions.

In recent years, the collaboration between internet medical service and third-party medical service providers has deepened progressively, expanding from the initial consumer healthcare sector into core medical domains. This shift represents a transition from "light-touch affiliation" to "close-knit partnership."

As a result, internet medical service platforms have evolved beyond merely serving as entry points for patient traffic—they now possess the professional capacity to deliver comprehensive, whole-cycle health and wellness services. Looking ahead, the deep operational and data-level synergy between internet medical service and third-party service organizations is expected to drive transformative changes in payment models within the commercial health insurance sector. At the same time, third-party service providers are utilizing these partnerships to expand their patient base, moving beyond their previous business models limited to isolated segments such as laboratory testing and diagnostic imaging, and extending their reach into grassroots healthcare markets.

The collaboration between internet medical service and third-party medical services initially centered on physical examinations, adopting a "light-touch affiliation" model where packages were sold online and examinations were conducted offline. From 2020 to 2022, the scope of cooperation expanded rapidly into medical laboratory services, gradually extending from the then urgently needed nucleic acid testing to a wider range of laboratory tests, providing multi-dimensional data references for disease diagnosis or health management.

Today, with the evolution of health demands and technological maturity, the collaboration has entered a "close-knit partnership" stage characterized by stronger medical attributes and data interconnectivity. A significant milestone in this phase is the deep synergy between internet medical service and third-party medical imaging institutions. A recent example within the industry is the collaboration between Ping An Healthcare and Rimag Imaging Hospital Group, as reported by VCBeat. The two parties have achieved integration at the underlying data level, enabling users to place orders online, undergo examinations offline, and have imaging reports automatically returned to the platform. Physicians can then review the results in real time, thereby completing the service fulfillment loop.

The emergence of this model further complements the offline service components of internet medical service platforms. By leveraging the advanced equipment and professional examinations of third-party medical imaging institutions, patient trust is enhanced. As the collaboration gradually extends into core aspects of serious medical care, it provides physicians with more comprehensive references and strengthens overall medical service capabilities. Concurrently, platforms can establish data-driven precision services. The accumulation of comprehensive health information supports AI-assisted diagnosis and personalized health management, further improving service efficiency and accuracy.

When users can complete the entire process—from health consultation and diagnostic examinations to long-term management—within the same platform, their reliance on and loyalty to the platform naturally increase. Overall, collaboration with third-party medical service providers accelerates the transformation of internet medical service from an online traffic gateway into a full-chain health management platform, increasingly solidifying its role as a central hub within the industry ecosystem.

From a long-term perspective, the collaboration between internet medical service and third-party medical service institutions will profoundly impact the healthcare industry ecosystem, particularly in advancing the goal of value-based care within the medical service system and progressing toward value-based payment models.

Over the past two years, national policies have vigorously promoted the interoperability of laboratory and imaging data and the mutual recognition of test results. This initiative not only reduces duplicate examinations for patients, saving healthcare costs and patient time, but also serves as a crucial approach to achieving homogenization and continuity of medical services. Moreover, it is a key measure to reduce healthcare expenditure while ensuring the quality of medical services. Currently, interoperability of laboratory and imaging data and mutual recognition of results among public medical institutions have begun to yield preliminary results.

Outside the hospital setting, however, significant silos persist in service processes and data accumulation among key industry participants such as commercial institutions, third-party medical service providers, and internet medical service platforms.

As the collaboration between internet medical service and third-party medical services enters a stage of deep integration of services and data—characterized as the "close-knit partnership" phase—these silos are expected to be broken down. Among these, internet medical service platforms backed by commercial insurance resources collaborating with offline medical service institutions hold particularly prominent value in dismantling industry barriers.

Similar to traditional health insurance payment methods, conventional commercial insurance claims are primarily fee-for-service and involve post-treatment reimbursement, making it difficult to impose effective constraints on medical service providers. Issues such as duplicate examinations and overtreatment can easily drive up claim costs. Through collaboration with hospital-shared imaging centers in regions served by Rimag Imaging Hospital Group, the two parties can leverage their respective strengths to establish a precise cost control and value distribution system, which is expected to rationally reduce unnecessary expenditures resulting from non-essential examinations. This aligns closely with a key objective of the Chinese-style HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) managed care model: achieving full-cycle health maintenance and cost control in claims.

Notably, unlike other third-party medical service institutions, Rimag Imaging Hospital Group has successfully extended the imaging diagnostic capabilities of top-tier public hospitals to grassroots levels by establishing regional medical imaging sharing centers and specialized medical alliances. As the medical imaging market continues to expand, policy-driven third-party imaging institutions are transitioning from a "complementary role" to becoming "key nodes in the healthcare ecosystem." According to its prospectus, in addition to self-built centers, one of its core businesses is assisting hospitals at various levels in establishing or standardizing imaging departments. This service model, deeply integrated into the public healthcare system through the construction of regional medical imaging sharing centers, not only achieves interconnectivity of imaging data across hospitals at different levels within a region and realizes "examinations at grassroots levels, diagnostics at higher-tier institutions," but also endows its offline service network with high professional barriers and extensive coverage. This model holds potential as a multi-win practice for cost control and resource optimization for both public health insurance and commercial insurance.

Under the above model, key stakeholders—including hospitals, third-party medical service institutions, commercial insurance companies, and internet medical service platforms—can establish a value-based community: hospitals enhance diagnostic efficiency through standardized examinations, third-party medical service institutions gain more loyal users through professional services, insurance companies reduce claim costs through precise management, and internet medical service platforms, acting as the nexus, facilitate value distribution through traffic and service closed loop capabilities, ultimately achieving a win-win outcome for all parties.

This model aligns with the core logic of managed care—cost control, efficiency enhancement, and value sharing—while also resonating with the policy direction of healthcare payment reform that encourages retaining surplus funds. It provides a template for the industry to explore sustainable commercialization pathways.

Although policies and market forces have driven the expansion of the third-party medical service industry, as the sector evolves to a new stage, bottlenecks such as high customer acquisition costs, limited service scenarios, weak post-examination management, and difficulties in extending high-quality resources to grassroots markets have become increasingly prominent, constraining further market growth. The unique advantages of internet medical service offer a viable pathway to overcome these challenges.

First, there is the redefinition of customer acquisition logic. According to analysis by VCBeat, the trend of internet medical service users converging toward leading platforms remains unchanged in recent years. Some top platforms, such as Ping An Healthcare, have integrated resources across consumers (C-end), business (B-end), and financial/insurance partners (F-end). Within this ecosystem, a substantial volume of essential examination needs naturally emerges. Through large-scale and highly efficient precision matching of supply and demand, the marketing costs for third-party medical institutions are expected to decrease significantly, resource utilization efficiency is likely to improve, and new growth opportunities may open up for them.

This gateway advantage holds particularly significant value in grassroots markets. While China's grassroots market is vast, its demand is fragmented, and the cost of establishing physical outlets is high. Internet medical service platforms can aggregate and distribute demand from grassroots markets, helping third-party medical institutions build service pathways that include online consultation, offline nearby testing and examinations, and online interpretation and intervention.

Looking further, internet medical service platforms will drive third-party medical service providers to extend their service chains and enhance value-added contributions. For a long time, third-party medical service institutions have predominantly focused on single segments such as testing and examinations, emphasizing "problem identification" with limited involvement in "problem resolution." Through collaboration with internet platforms, their service chains can be extended to form integrated offerings encompassing testing and examinations, report interpretation, referral, and health intervention. These institutions will transition from being passive service providers that "only test without follow-up" into active participants in users' full-life-cycle health management, thereby increasing user engagement and repeat utilization.

Beyond this, the value of internet medical service platforms is also reflected in brand empowerment. Leading internet medical service platforms have already built substantial brand influence and user trust, which can assist small and medium-sized third-party medical service institutions in expanding their market reach more smoothly.

Examining the industry's developmental trajectory, the deep collaboration between internet medical service and third-party medical service institutions represents not only a natural evolution of the healthcare industry—shifting from early-stage competition for user traffic toward deeper service integration and value synergy—but also a rational pathway toward value-based care.

As the integration of services such as health check-ups, medical laboratory testing, and medical imaging with the internet medical service ecosystem matures, this collaboration is expected to extend into more diverse and specialized areas in the future. In the long run, driven by policy guidance, market demand, and technological advancement, this value-based medical service model built on multi-party cooperation is poised to play a more constructive role in China's healthcare delivery system, thereby contributing to the establishment of a more efficient, precise, and accessible health service ecosystem.