Series 4 of '50 Opportunities in Dentistry': Taikang BestSmile Empowers the Dental Industry with 'Insurance + Healthcare' Innovation

KPMG China’s Top 50 Private Dental Healthcare Enterprises is part of the KPMG China Healthcare 50 series. KPMG China has long maintained a close focus on development trends within China’s healthcare industry. Through this public welfare initiative in the dental sector, we aim to identify outstanding benchmark enterprises in the dental healthcare market, facilitate the healthy growth of more high-quality private dental healthcare providers, and jointly explore emerging trends shaping the future of China’s dental healthcare market from a global perspective, thereby supporting the transformation and rise of China’s dental healthcare industry.

To support the “Top 50 Private Dental Healthcare Enterprises in China” initiative, KPMG China has specially curated and launched the “Dental 50 Opportunities” series. This series focuses on enterprises across the upstream and downstream of the dental healthcare industry chain, exploring topics such as the current market environment, investment hotspots, and industrial transformation, to provide insights into the future development trends of the dental healthcare sector.

In this article, we share the insights from the “Oral Care 50 Opportunities” series of dialogues in a Q&A format. In this interview, Geng Miao, Tax Director for the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry at KPMG China, speaks with Chen Honghua, Member of the Management Committee of Taikang Insurance Group and CEO of Taikang Bybo Dental.

Geng Miao:On October 29, “Taikang Worry-Free Dental Implant Warranty Insurance,” a warranty insurance product jointly developed by Taikang Bybo Dental and Taikang Online Property Insurance, was launched first in Beijing and quickly rolled out to multiple provinces and municipalities, including Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Chongqing. The product provides dual protection for dental implant patients: full compensation within the scope of insurance coverage and free re-implantation according to the original treatment plan. This launch marks a comprehensive upgrade of Taikang Bybo Dental’s medical quality management system and customer protection framework, representing a significant achievement in its active exploration of the “Insurance + Healthcare” model within the dental implant segment.

In recent years, Taikang Bybo Dental has continuously strengthened its exploration of dental health insurance, launching more than 40 dental insurance products that cover the full life cycle—from children to adults—and span the entire spectrum from prevention to treatment. Please share the innovative aspects of Taikang Bybo Dental’s “Insurance + Healthcare” model.

Chen Honghua:As the oral healthcare industry chain matures, oral health insurance plays a pivotal role as a high-value enabler. It not only connects the entire industrial ecosystem with extensive and diverse oral healthcare service resources and information but also uncovers rich and varied end-user consumption demands, thereby providing demand feedback and practical evidence for innovation in service models at oral healthcare institutions.

Drawing on the development experience of dental health insurance in developed countries, opening up payment channels for dental health insurance plays a key role in enhancing the willingness of the national population to seek dental treatment. According to the Fourth National Oral Health Epidemiological Survey Report, the prevalence of oral diseases in China exceeds 90%, yet the consultation rate stands at only 10%. Leveraging its superior insights, Taikang Bybo Dental has taken the lead in grasping the dynamic needs of dental consumers and promptly launched dental health insurance products, thereby strengthening its customer acquisition capabilities. Essentially, Taikang Bybo Dental has actively positioned itself in the dental health insurance sector around the “insurance + healthcare” model, strategically securing a niche that precisely meets consumer demands, thus gaining a head start in China’s dental health insurance market.

The launch of “Taikang Worry-Free Dental Implant Insurance” serves as a proactive response to the strategy of integrating dental care with insurance, linking Taikang Insurance’s payment capabilities with Taikang Bybo Dental’s implant technology. This initiative optimizes segmented implant service models tailored to diverse customer groups and achieves a significant expansion in urban coverage. Furthermore, Taikang Bybo Dental has meticulously planned the development of oral health insurance products covering all customer segments and entire life cycles. By analyzing business value and feasibility, it has prioritized the implementation of various specialized dental insurance offerings and clarified the future roadmap for the “Insurance + Healthcare” model. In addition, Taikang Life will continue to issue annuity products with dental benefits, such as “Happy Appointment,” mutually empowering Taikang Bybo Dental. Together, they aim to explore synergies between the insurance and dental healthcare sectors and jointly build an ecosystem for oral health insurance.

Geng Miao:On August 6, Taikang officially launched its new premium dental brand, Taikang Dental. Leveraging mechanisms such as Taikang Bybo Dental’s nationwide service network, a rotating specialist consultation model across China, a private dentist service system, and a nationwide warranty, the brand provides long-term, companion-style oral health services tailored to families. What does the launch of this new premium dental brand signify for Taikang Bybo Dental?

Chen Honghua:To further deepen the integration strategy of dental insurance and dental care, Taikang Dental, a premium dental brand, has been officially launched, marking a milestone in the exploration of transitioning oral health insurance into tangible dental medical services. Targeting high-net-worth and middle-class clients on a family basis, Taikang Dental has developed a comprehensive, customized oral health management guide, transforming the assembly-line model of dental diagnosis and treatment into a personalized, full-lifecycle oral health management approach tailored to individual needs.

Under the influence of “long-termism,” Taikang Dental is committed to implementing the concept of oral health management. Leveraging Taikang’s robust payment capabilities, Taikang Dental provides high-quality oral health management services while achieving effective medical cost control, thereby driving a transformation in the oral healthcare service model from “emphasizing dental treatment” to “prioritizing oral health management.”

Taikang Dental has emerged as a standout, sounding the charge to pioneer the high-net-worth individual (HNWI) market. Currently, numerous high-net-worth clients of Taikang Insurance are flocking to experience its oral health screening services. In the near future, this premium dental brand will stimulate the consumption willingness of Taikang Insurance’s millions of VIP clients, facilitating their transformation from insurance policyholders into dental care consumers. This shift will replace traditional high-cost online customer acquisition models, broaden client sourcing channels, and establish a new paradigm in the oral healthcare industry.

Geng Miao:Taikang Bybo Dental has successively established expert-led studios. Among them, the “Professor Shen Gang’s Orthodontic Doctoral Team Studio,” the “Professor Zhou Lei Teleconsultation Center Digital Implantology Studio,” and the “Dr. Li Manyuan Studio” have been launched in key cities, forming a nationwide network. What experience has Taikang Bybo Dental gained in attracting high-quality medical talent? Please share Taikang Bybo Dental’s successful practices and future plans regarding its talent strategy.

Chen Honghua:Taikang Bybo Dental adopts a dual-pronged talent reserve strategy, combining the “nest-building to attract phoenixes” approach for talent acquisition with the “self-sustaining hematopoiesis” model for talent development.

In its efforts to “build a nest to attract phoenixes,” Taikang Bybo Dental has strived to create a virtuous platform that aligns with the unique strengths of experts while achieving a win-win outcome for both individuals and the group. This initiative has attracted a cohort of leading figures in China’s dental healthcare sector, such as Zhou Lei, Shen Gang, Wei Bing, Ye Ping, Ji Dong, and Shi Qing, who have established expert studios. Serving as the think tank for Taikang Bybo Dental, these expert studios fully leverage their role in mentoring and training, building multiple tiers of high-caliber physician teams. Through collaborative teamwork, they deliver consistent and continuous medical services to patients. Meanwhile, Taikang Bybo Dental remains committed to a development path centered on “academia + technology + specialization.” It has forged core competitiveness by establishing eight professional academic committees and setting up top-tier disciplinary organizations in various fields, including the IDDC Digital Demonstration Base for Complex Implant Cases, the Center for Children’s Dental and Craniofacial Development Management, and the Center for Full-Mouth Complex Aesthetic Implantology. These initiatives pool collective expertise to address complex and challenging patient cases.

While the recruitment of high-level talent is undoubtedly important, the long-term, stable cultivation and supply of talent serve as the guarantee for Taikang Bybo Dental’s healthy development. To strengthen its “self-sustaining” capability, Taikang Bybo Dental has made meticulous efforts in campus recruitment and university-enterprise cooperation, proactively laying the groundwork to independently cultivate dental professionals and build a robust reserve of doctors to support future expansion.

After 30 years of accumulation, Taikang Bybo Dental has gradually developed into the “Whampoa Military Academy” of the dental healthcare industry. Its alumni are actively working in major dental chain institutions, playing a pivotal role in the sector. In the future, Taikang Bybo Dental will continue to embrace an open and inclusive attitude, consistently injecting fresh talent, innovative thinking, and novel diagnostic and treatment approaches into the dental industry’s talent pool.

Geng Miao:In Taikang Bybo Dental's future development plan for its nationwide network layout, which cities or regions are the key targets for expansion?

Chen Honghua:Mapping out the future regional development blueprint for Taikang Bybo Dental requires not only a foundation of professional, scientific, and systematic data analysis but also the business intuition honed by the core leadership team over time, representing a combination of art and science. Aligned with Taikang Bybo Dental’s strategic focus on high-performing premium clients, the core priority for future development will be to continuously unlock the economic engine cities in the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and central provinces.

In the dental healthcare industry, fragmented operational models—such as single-store operations within a single city—struggle to achieve economies of scale. Strengthening network density in key cities will be an essential path for Taikang Bybo Dental to break through the ceiling on urban patient traffic. Meanwhile, throughout its chain expansion, Taikang Bybo Dental will adhere to its strategy of integrating dental insurance with clinical services. This approach will serve as a supportive measure to standardize diagnostic and treatment processes, establish benchmarks for homogeneous service quality, and ensure that consumers receive consistent, high-quality dental care across all its locations.

Meanwhile, we will align with and coordinate Taikang’s payment-side strategy to establish an efficient, professional, and stable collaborative ecosystem.

Geng Miao:The introduction of nationally unified deployment and guidance policies has imposed higher requirements on the operational efficiency of dental service providers. Taikang Bybo Dental has implemented a “three-tier physician responsibility” system through digital technologies, enabling attending physicians to receive remote guidance and support from senior specialists during treatment planning and surgical procedures, thereby ensuring homogeneous and standardized treatment outcomes.

In the future, Taikang Bybo Dental will continue to deepen the clinical application of digital technologies in dental implantology, promote the widespread adoption and development of digital implant techniques, immediate loading, and comfortable implant procedures, and truly bring advanced dental implant technologies and concepts closer to the general public. How do digital technologies in dentistry enhance efficiency in the oral healthcare industry?

Chen Honghua:Leveraging digital technology to transform service processes has long become a standard solution for cost reduction and efficiency enhancement in the dental industry. As a nationwide dental chain, Taikang Bybo Dental significantly benefits its overall operations by ensuring a balanced geographical distribution of medical resources, standardizing service quality, and normalizing clinical workflows. Taikang Bybo Dental integrates digitalization across all scenarios of dental diagnosis and treatment, supports the development of remote physician teams, and leverages internet technologies to achieve platform-based data management.

First, in the realm of digital diagnosis and treatment, the application of new technologies such as digital implantology has significantly enhanced therapeutic precision. This marks a stark departure from the era of “freehand” procedures reliant solely on clinicians’ experience, serving as an effective means to achieve precision, minimally invasive techniques, and standardization in oral surgery.

Furthermore, in the field of telemedicine, Taikang Bybo Dental has made proactive explorations and attempts. While enabling a team of highly skilled and experienced physicians to conduct surgical diagnoses and treatments across geographical barriers, it integrates and disseminates practical clinical experience in dental care, providing excellent learning opportunities for young doctors and realizing the vision of building a “dream team” in oral healthcare.

Finally, to solidify the foundation for digital development, Taikang Bybo Dental has completed the platformization of its service processes and the digitization of operational data reporting. Currently, appointment scheduling, patient visits, and post-consultation follow-ups at Taikang Bybo Dental have all been migrated online. Meanwhile, leveraging its self-designed Business Intelligence (BI) system, management can monitor store performance in real time through online reports, enabling focused attention on critical issues and the creation of efficient, agile solutions.