Yuguo Doctor Advances Family Healthcare Plan and Builds a Comprehensive Review-Based Triage System for All Populations and Disease Spectrums

Yuguo Doctor is China’s leading premium private healthcare discount platform. Since its founding in 2012, it has partnered with nearly 1,000 high-end private medical institutions, including international healthcare brands such as United Family Healthcare,明德 (Mingde), Amcare, ParkwayHealth, and Word Health, achieving over 80% coverage in the premium private healthcare sector.

Recently, during the “2018 Top 100 Future Healthcare Companies” forum held in Beijing, a reporter from VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) conducted a brief exclusive interview with Ma Yukun, Founder and CEO of Yuguo Doctor. She shared insights into how Yuguo Doctor is transforming the way Chinese people seek medical care, as well as the company’s strategic focus on home healthcare initiatives and its future development plans.

Ma Yukun, Founder and CEO of Yiguo Doctor

With the advancement of internet technology, the general improvement in living standards, and the deepening development of the national healthcare security system, people’s demands for medical environments, comfortable diagnostic and treatment experiences, personalized health management, and convenient payment methods are continuously rising. The traditional basic healthcare model struggles to meet the consumption needs of mid-to-high-end populations. Currently, the medical service market is unevenly developed: there are numerous basic healthcare institutions but few high-end ones, resulting in a large customer base with limited options.

How can we meet the medical service needs of mid-to-high-end consumers and shorten their decision-making time? In previous reports by VCBeat, the Yiguo Doctor model has been elaborated in detail. The platform is dedicated to connecting high-end private medical institutions with insurance providers, offering services such as screening of premium private healthcare facilities, verification of physicians’ practice credentials, and consultation discounts, thereby helping users make better-informed healthcare decisions. To address clients’ personalized needs, professional brokers recommend various types of high-end commercial insurance plans. Both discount programs and insurance options are promptly displayed and linked within users’ Yiguo personal accounts.

According to available data, Yugu Doctor has partnered with nearly 1,000 high-end private medical institutions, including international healthcare brands such as United Family Healthcare, Mingde Medical Center, Amcare, ParkwayHealth, and Word. Its services cover more than 10 regions and cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong (China), and Japan. The platform achieves over 80% coverage in the high-end private healthcare sector, 100% coverage of top-tier medical brands, and exclusive discounted rates with more than 60% of these partners. Yugu Doctor works with over 12,000 senior physicians, 70% of whom are experts at the associate chief physician level or above from Grade A tertiary hospitals. It covers hundreds of high-end medical insurance plans for individuals and families offered by 90% of major high-end health insurers, such as Bupa, MSH, Cigna & CMB, and Ping An, reaching a monthly user base of over 1 million across all channels.

Before founding Yugu Doctor, Ma Yukun worked in clinical practice at Tiantan Hospital for ten years. In 2012, at the outset of his entrepreneurial venture, the initial product was an invitation-only private maternal and infant community called “Mama Yugu Network.” It primarily served as a platform for individuals seeking care at private medical institutions to exchange information on medical consultations and commercial health insurance. Functioning more like a community forum, it allowed users to post independent reviews, secured the lowest discounted rates for members at partner healthcare institutions, and assisted members in resolving disputes with relevant facilities.

In 2015, “Mama Yuguo Network” was renamed “Yuguo Doctor,” shifting its business model from a “maternal and infant community forum” to a “mobile medical consultation” APP. It established a commercial medical diagnosis and treatment service platform for high-end private hospitals, insurance institutions, and third-party clients, positioning itself as a “high-end private healthcare discount platform” to connect customers with optimal medical resources. In 2017, Yuguo Doctor integrated with the Youzan Mall and successively launched products such as the Yuguo Doctor Service Account, Yuguo Pregnancy Assistant, and the Yuguo Doctor Tmall Flagship Store.

In 2018, Yiguo Doctor deepened its online payment integration and entered into a strategic partnership with AliHealth, establishing the Yiguo Doctor Flagship Store on Tmall—the only marketplace-style flagship store in the medical category. Meanwhile, it also reached a strategic agreement with JD.com to launch the JD Yiguo Medical Services Flagship Store. “We have standardized, digitized, commercialized, and platformized private hospital medical packages, taking a revolutionary O2O step toward the deep integration of the ‘Internet Plus’ model in healthcare services. Currently, our listed products cover more than ten cities across China, encompassing the majority of healthcare service offerings, including top-tier obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dentistry, general hospitals, and postpartum care centers.”

Reflecting on his journey since founding the company, Ma Yukun stated, “As a physician, a patient myself, and now an entrepreneur in the commercial healthcare sector, I aim to transform how Chinese people access medical care. Patients should have the power of choice from the very beginning of their healthcare journey, rather than being forced to accept whatever is available at the final stage out of necessity. This is my goal, as well as the vision and mission of Yiguo Doctor.”

As a tool-based medical guidance product, it enables users to conveniently access required information on the Yuguo Doctor platform, such as physicians’ practice credentials and hospital discount details, once their needs arise. Hospitals benefit from platform-driven traffic and transparent word-of-mouth promotion, while insurance institutions gain access to high-value medical data and precisely targeted users, creating a win-win scenario for all parties involved.

On the benchmarked platform, Ma Yukun considers Meituan-Dianping to be the counterpart, as both share commonalities in medical information acquisition, shortening user decision-making time, and evaluating medical reputation and experience. “Currently, Dianping primarily focuses on well-priced and clearly priced standardized products that support direct payment. In contrast, the maternal and child health sector mainly involves non-standardized services, which constitutes the key difference. Yiguo Doctor can focus on deepening its services. For instance, our online payment feature, which we have prioritized this year, has been growing at a monthly rate of 30%, fully demonstrating that the market ceiling in this sector is very high.”

In addition, a clear trend is that mid-to-high-end users urgently desire more comfortable diagnostic and treatment environments, convenient access to medical care, comprehensive disease screening, and personalized services. “We are also deepening our focus on long-term health management for family members, as well as overseas medical treatment and commercial insurance payment solutions. These users are willing to pay a premium for superior medical services. Therefore, we plan to fully launch the ‘Yuguo Health Management’ Family Medical Plan in the first quarter of 2019, rolling it out nationwide.”

Ma Yukun introduced that “Yuguo Health Management” can meet the needs of home-based medical consultations, offering services including clinical consultations, health management, overseas medical treatment, and multidisciplinary team (MDT) care. It provides exclusive 24/7 online video consultations with general practitioners, tailors one-on-one personalized health checkup plans based on clients’ physical conditions, family medical history, and pre-existing conditions, and also offers services such as appointment scheduling with specialists at Tier-3 Grade-A hospitals, household vaccination planning, and preconception and maternity care. This approach guides healthcare institutions to strengthen innovation by starting with family health management, accurately identifying customer needs, and refining scenario-based services.

Reporters learned that Yiguo Doctor’s renewal rate can reach 90%, “a very high figure. Of course, we typically calculate this on an annual basis; some users discontinue coverage after renewing for two to three years. These policies are generally purchased individually for children. In contrast, when insurance is purchased for the entire family, most policyholders tend to maintain continuous coverage, as it reflects a broader philosophy toward health management.”

Regarding how Yuguo Doctor will achieve breakthroughs and upgrades in talent, teams, products, and services to build a superior high-end medical service network and provide better user experiences, Ma Yukun stated: “We will continue to deepen the implementation of online payment solutions and the ‘Yuguo Health Management’ home healthcare program. Currently, Yuguo Doctor supports online appointment scheduling and online payment of consultation fees at dozens of hospitals. On a broader scale, online payment functionality is being rolled out at nearly 1,000 high-end commercial medical institutions across China. Meanwhile, patients can use their insurance cards directly at partner medical institutions for signature-based consultations, with subsequent costs settled separately between the insurance providers and the medical facilities. Patients only need to confirm the bill, eliminating the need to navigate cumbersome reimbursement processes. This significantly streamlines service workflows and enhances service quality, thereby delivering better service to our customers.”

Regarding the long-term vision for Yugu Doctor, Ma Yukun aims to build a company focused on the “commercial healthcare” sector. It will establish a health diagnosis and treatment information service platform for high-end private hospitals, insurance institutions, and third-party clients. By leveraging the “Internet Plus” model to drive the deep integration of the internet with healthcare services, and adhering to the core values of “customer-centricity, creating social value, pursuing excellence, and professional efficiency,” the company strives to become a billion-dollar internet enterprise dedicated to serving the health of the Chinese population and advancing the development of China’s healthcare industry.