Ping An Good Doctor's B2B Health Management Business Surges 88.9% Amid Market Headwinds, CEO Fang Weihao Sees Vast Growth Potential

In June 2023, the National Health Commission released the findings of the first national monitoring survey on occupational health literacy among key populations. The results showed that in 2022, the occupational health literacy level among key populations across China was 52.6%. Notably, workers in the tertiary sector, such as those in express delivery and food delivery services, had the lowest occupational health literacy rate at only 36.1%, significantly below the national average.

In recent years, occupational health issues caused by prolonged overtime, high-intensity work pressure, and heavy workloads have become increasingly prominent, particularly in the technology sector represented by IT, as well as in emerging business models such as express delivery and food delivery services mentioned above.

In the new phase characterized by vibrant technological innovation and the emergence of new business models, occupational health is witnessing diverse new demands, necessitating corresponding innovations in service formats and content. The National Plan for Occupational Disease Prevention and Control (2021–2025) points out that occupational health informatization has previously lagged behind. Therefore, in accordance with the requirements of facilitating convenience for the public and businesses and optimizing services, vigorous implementation of “Internet + Occupational Health Services” is required.

In the market under the new landscape, Ping An Healthcare has pioneered an enterprise health management model based on internet healthcare. After nearly two years of trials, it delivered impressive results in the first half of 2023:Corporate health management revenue reached RMB 450 million, a year-on-year increase of 88.9%, making it the fastest-growing revenue channel.

Overall, Ping An Healthcare achieved total revenue of RMB 2.22 billion in the first half of the year. With the business structure adjustment largely completed, its gross profit margin increased by 5.6 percentage points year-on-year to 32.2%.Net loss narrowed significantly by 47.2% year-on-year to RMB 245 million, accelerating progress toward profitability.

What Does Ping An Healthcare’s New Model of Corporate Health Management Look Like? How Does It Align with Market Demand? How Can the Corporate Health Management Business Accelerate the Company’s Profitability? In Response to Many Questions of Concern within the Industry, VCBeat Conducted an Exclusive Interview with Fang Weihao, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Ping An Healthcare, and Provided an Analysis.

Fang Weihao, Chairman of the Board and CEO of Ping An Healthcare

In November 2021, Ping An Healthcare launched the deepening of its Strategy 2.0, with the B-end becoming one of the key focus channels, forming the company’s core business together with the existing F-end channel. In 2022, Ping An Healthcare initially established the “Yi Qi Health” health management product system tailored for enterprises and their employees, comprising two core solutions: “Check-up+” and “Health Management+”. By the end of 2022, the number of B-end clients had expanded to 978, with the number of paying users reaching 2.9 million.

Since the first half of 2023, the “Yi Qi Health” product suite has undergone continuous upgrades to acquire new customers and retain high-value clients.As of the end of June, the company had cumulatively served 1,198 enterprises, an increase of 449 from the same period last year, covering nearly 3.9 million enterprise employees and users, with a renewal rate for existing large-scale enterprise clients reaching nearly 90%.

It is evident from the data performance that,Ping An Healthcare’s nearly two-year pilot has yielded remarkable results, with its products and services gradually gaining market recognition. The positioning of B-side payers as the company’s growth engine has become increasingly clear.

Currently, the socioeconomic landscape remains in a recovery phase, and enterprises are more inclined to allocate funds to core operational and production activities, while employee health management is often perceived merely as a “cost item.” In this context,Ping An Healthcare’s corporate health management business has achieved rare “counter-trend” growth.

Fang Weihao stated that corporate health management has long been a sector in urgent need of integration and refined operations, representing a blue-ocean market with significant long-term growth potential. The total addressable market is estimated at RMB 2–3 trillion; even at a 10% penetration rate, this would amount to RMB 200–300 billion. “Our business scale is still under RMB 2 billion, merely scratching the tip of the iceberg.”

In line with Ping An Healthcare’s strategy, the B2B market prioritizes engagement with medium-to-large enterprises that possess ample budgets for corporate health management, have well-defined employee health management plans, and demonstrate strong payment capacity and willingness. Fang Weihao stated, “Adopting a top-down approach allows us to establish benchmark key accounts in various regions, thereby enhancing other enterprises’ awareness of health management. Additionally, since our current market reach is still limited, we are less affected by broader macroeconomic conditions.”

From Fang Weihao’s perspective, as market expansion deepens, there is a perceptible increase in the acceptance of health management concepts among both enterprises and employees. “Our client pipeline includes numerous prospects at various stages, including initial discussions, bidding, contract signing, and service delivery. Judging by our reserve volume, the B2B business still holds significant room for growth.”

The “Health Checkup+” solution is Ping An Healthcare’s “stepping stone” to enter the corporate health management market.

Fang Weihao believes that health checkups can accumulate population-level data for health status and risk analysis; more importantly, they generate individual-level data. The completion of a health checkup actually marks the beginning of health management by family doctors. Only by delivering personalized management plans tailored to each individual based on their personal data can precise and effective management be achieved; otherwise, it merely becomes a disturbance to users.

In fact, current health check-ups have become a standard benefit, covering a large number of enterprises and public institutions of varying sizes. However, the focus of most corporate group examinations remains on the examination process itself. Some group examination programs are beginning to extend their services to the post-examination phase, such as providing overall employee health status analyses and offering consultation and Q&A services to employees with questions within a specified period.

Overall, traditional employee health checkups focus on the “checkup” itself; even with additional services, they lack sufficient precision and proactivity.

In 2023, Ping An Healthcare further strengthened the process management of its “Health Checkup+” solutions, implementing targeted operational strategies for both corporate and individual clients across the pre-checkup, during-checkup, and post-checkup stages.

Ping An Healthcare’s “Checkup+” Solution

For corporate clients, the company leverages its extensive resources and strong coordination capabilities to meet the multi-location and diverse health checkup needs of large enterprises. As of the end of June 2023, it had partnered with over 2,000 health checkup providers across China. During the checkup process, Ping An Healthcare improves employee participation rates through effective operations and tracking. Post-checkup, it provides professional, end-to-end aftercare services to mitigate workplace health risks.

For individuals, Ping An Healthcare offers personalized and self-directed health checkup packages, providing end-to-end guidance and follow-up medical assistance.

However, there is significant individual variation among employees, particularly in large enterprises with a substantial workforce. When customizing and delivering services for corporations, insufficient personalization may undermine employees’ and the organization’s sense of gain and satisfaction, whereas excessive personalization may increase operational costs. To address this challenge, Ping An Healthcare established the “Digital Intelligence Health Checkup Research Institute” in 2023, leveraging corporate clients’ actual needs to provide the most effective and highly targeted personalized group health checkup solutions.

Thus,Ping An Healthcare has built a digital and intelligent “New Physical Examination” model that is oriented toward reducing occupational health risks, covers the entire examination process, and combines personalization with high efficiency.

Taking Ping An Healthcare’s service to a certain state-owned bank as an example, the bank features numerous branches, wide geographic distribution, and strong local compliance requirements, posing significant challenges for centralized coordination. Its employees span multiple hierarchical levels and a broad age range, with highly individualized needs, making it difficult to standardize health examination requirements. Due to the large employee base, post-examination services such as report interpretation, health status tracking, and medical care facilitation remain relatively fragmented.

To address these key challenges, Ping An Healthcare has developed a targeted “Health Checkup+” solution. First, Ping An Healthcare liaises directly with the bank’s headquarters to provide localized services for different branches. Meanwhile, employees are segmented into distinct groups to receive customized health checkup packages that meet the needs of staff at various levels. In addition, value-added services are offered, including one-on-one physician interpretation of checkup reports, one-stop assistance for accessing care at Grade 3A hospitals, on-site health lectures, and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy services delivered to the workplace. Ultimately, Ping An Healthcare coordinated annual health checkups across seven branches in six cities for the bank, achieving a 98% employee satisfaction rate and earning strong recognition from management.

Benefiting from the differentiated "New Physical Examination" model,As of the end of June 2023, Ping An Healthcare’s “Check-up+” service had cumulatively served 722 corporate clients, representing a year-on-year increase of 67.9%.

“Health Management+” is another core solution in the “Yi Qi Health” product ecosystem.

According to Ping An Healthcare’s business segment classification, “Health Management+” primarily falls under the medical services segment. This segment reported a gross profit margin of 42.9%, which is higher than that of the health services segment and has been on a continuous upward trend, playing a key role in enhancing Ping An Healthcare’s overall profitability.

Currently, the “Health Management+” solution is in a phase of continuous product optimization and quality improvement with enhanced efficiency on the supply side.

On the product front, the 2023 “Health Management+” initiative placed greater emphasis on flexible customization and efficient personalized services. It introduced three customized service modules—health facilities, cultural activities, and specialized management—as well as three exclusive service offerings—online consultations, offline medical care, and a benefits marketplace—thereby comprehensively enhancing corporate employees’ health management and medical care efficiency.

Ping An Healthcare’s “Health Management+” Solution

On the supply side, as of the end of June 2023, Ping An Healthcare had established a team of approximately 50,000 internal and external physicians covering 22 medical specialties, with nearly 2,400 renowned experts under contract. However, a comparison of Ping An Healthcare’s physician team data over the past two years reveals that the total headcount has seen only modest growth, without any large-scale expansion.

Fang Weihao candidly stated that this is because the supply side is advancing a transition from quantity to quality, establishing mechanisms to facilitate smoother collaboration between internal and external physicians and streamline various service links. “We are streamlining and reengineering service processes to achieve a more optimal saturation level of workload for both internal and external physicians.”

Taking the management of external physicians as an example, in 2023, Ping An Healthcare launched an algorithmic system similar to DiDi’s ride-hailing platform. The system assigns star ratings to physicians based on dimensions such as service quality, response speed, and patient reviews. When a user initiates a consultation request, the system prioritizes assigning it to five-star physicians; if a physician fails to accept the consultation within a specified time frame, the request is then assigned to four-star physicians, and so on. Through this strategy, Ping An Healthcare aims to create a superior user experience and attract more high-quality external physicians, moving away from its previous “sprinkling sesame seeds” approach of scattered, untargeted recruitment.

Nevertheless, the number of family doctors within the overall physician team is steadily increasing and is expected to continue growing. Fang Weihao noted that family doctors are more than just clinicians; their responsibilities extend to proactive health management, triaging and referring patients for specialized care, and serving as client managers in between, effectively acting as “navigators” within the entire service system.

Furthermore, as of now, Ping An Healthcare has developed 830 specialized services, each governed by Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and has established a three-tier “Medical Quality and Safety Management System.” The highly collaborative multi-departmental governance mechanism, coupled with the comprehensive implementation of various management measures, has consolidated the achievements in quality and safety management, maintaining patient satisfaction consistently above 98%.

Benefiting from continuous optimization on both the product and supply sides,As of June 2023, Ping An Healthcare’s “Health Management+” service had cumulatively served 555 corporate clients, representing a year-on-year increase of 46.8%.Among them, customers overlapping between “Health Management+” and “Checkup+” account for only 17.9% of “Checkup+” customers, indicating that a substantial number of “Checkup+” customers have the potential to convert to “Health Management+”.

Since 2023, Ping An Healthcare has been highly active in the corporate health management market.

In the first half of the year, Ping An Healthcare participated in the 2023 Health Management Development Forum and released the “Research Report on Chinese Small and Medium-sized Entrepreneurs’ Awareness of Health Management”; jointly conducted industry-related surveys and data research with the School of Public Health at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the Shanghai Health Promotion Center, and authored the “Survey Report on Corporate Health Promotion”; co-hosted and launched the corporate health-themed video series “Health Talk with Enterprises” together with the Office of the Shanghai Health Promotion Committee and the Shanghai Health Promotion Center; and introduced new products tailored for high-net-worth individuals...

Over the past two years, as Ping An Healthcare expanded into the corporate health management market, it leveraged the existing corporate client channels of the Ping An Group while simultaneously accumulating experience and developing its own independent channels. Fang Weihao noted that, by comparison, building independent channels involves a longer cycle of approximately six months; thus, part of the performance reported in 2023 was the result of business development efforts undertaken in 2022.

In light of business progress in 2023,Ping An Healthcare is pursuing more aggressive expansion of its proprietary channels and extending its reach from large and medium-sized enterprise clients to small and medium-sized enterprises, laying the groundwork for long-term customer acquisition.

Fang Weihao believes that,Corporate health management is undoubtedly a market with enormous opportunities, but it also faces significant challenges. The primary issue lies in the insufficient maturity of the market, requiring broader industry advocacy to convey the concept to enterprises that “employee health is not a cost, but an investment.”“For us, we strive to proactively cultivate the market through a systematic approach, gaining insight into the true conditions and needs of different customer segments.”

In recent years, with the development of new economic formats in China, the number of employees in sectors such as ride-hailing, express delivery, and instant delivery has been increasing. Some new forms of employment have higher time efficiency requirements and heavier workloads, making the relationship between employees' good health and efficient corporate operations even closer. Meanwhile, as new business formats become more diversified, the diversification of employee health management needs has become more pronounced.

These trends necessitate that health management service providers promptly educate the market on the importance of employee health management and offer corresponding products, thereby helping enterprises strike a balance between employee health expenditures and improved operational efficiency.

Ping An Healthcare is no longer just an internet healthcare company. However, since the company originated from the “Internet+” model and primarily provides online medical and health services, the internet healthcare industry continues to pay close attention to its business model.

It is evident that, in addition to leveraging the Ping An Group’s F-side channels to establish a solid foundation for its core business, Ping An Healthcare has also carved out a viable path in “Internet+” corporate health management.

Over the years, amidst continuous trial and error in the internet healthcare industry, some have departed while others have persevered;Every model that has been tested and proven in the market is invaluable, and Ping An Healthcare’s corporate health management model is no exception.