WeDoctor and ZhongAn Insurance Launch China's First ACO Product: Reimbursement for Online Consultations Now Available

After six years of refining its three-tiered medical service system, WeDoctor has begun to intensify its efforts in the healthcare payment sector.

On March 30, in Wuzhen, the birthplace of internet hospitals in China, WeDoctor signed a strategic cooperation agreement with ZhongAn Insurance, China’s first online insurance company. The two parties will join hands to explore and develop “future-oriented” liability-based medical service products.

On that day, WeDoctor fully unveiled its ACO product suite and launched the nation’s first ACO product jointly developed with ZhongAn—the “Family Guardian” Internet Hospital Outpatient Insurance.This insurance policy is issued on a household basis, with a minimum of three insured members. The annual premium is 365 yuan per person, and the maximum coverage amount is 5,000 yuan.Insured members not only enjoy 24/7, personalized dedicated physician services—including online outpatient consultations and pharmaceutical services covering over 100 sub-specialties across 10 major specialties—but also benefit from a cost-sharing arrangement where they pay only 40% out-of-pocket, with the remaining 60% directly covered by commercial insurance.

“‘Family Guardian’ has achieved two breakthroughs in internet-based health insurance: first, it incorporates online outpatient services into commercial insurance payments; second, it enables ultra-fast online claims settlement.” Wang Weiyi, head of the Beijing Division of ZhongAn Insurance’s Health Insurance Business, believes that by enabling direct billing with commercial insurance, online outpatient care has become more convenient and cost-effective, from diagnosis and treatment to payment. For example, a patient from Northeast China no longer needs to endure arduous travel back to Shanghai for follow-up visits after undergoing surgery there. Instead, he can consult his assigned physician online via Wuzhen Internet Hospital, with the expenses reimbursable, truly marking a significant leap forward in both healthcare delivery methods and patient experience.

“The launch of outpatient insurance for internet hospitals has returned health insurance to its essence: health management,” said Liao Jieyuan. From 2010 to 2016, China’s commercial health insurance sector saw a 4.8-fold growth rate. However, constrained by an inability to intervene in core medical processes and access effective medical and health data, health insurers have generally faced operational difficulties. Improving the patient experience and enhancing health management through controllable medical services has become the preferred strategy for insurers to mitigate risks and boost profit margins.

In his address, Liao Jieyuan introduced that over the past six years, WeDoctor has built a three-tiered safeguard capability to support the implementation of an accountable care service system.

The first layer consists of 2,400 partner hospitals and 260,000 online doctors covering China. By connecting upward to tertiary Grade A hospitals and downward to primary healthcare institutions via the internet, WeDoctor Internet Hospital has become China’s largest internet-based medical consortium, establishing a healthcare service network with controllable quality, cost, and efficiency.

The second layer is a responsible physician service system centered on WeDoctor General Practice. The recently opened WeDoctor General Practice Center, led by He Chao, former president of Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, has been built in accordance with international JCI and HIMSS standards, setting a benchmark for general practice medicine in China. Leveraging mobile internet and wearable devices, the WeDoctor responsible physician team provides users with continuous, proactive healthcare services—including health consultations, online diagnosis and medication purchasing, medical care guidance, and post-diagnosis follow-up—thereby effectively helping users mitigate disease risks, reduce healthcare expenditures, and improve overall health outcomes.

The third layer is WeDoctor’s big data service capability. Currently, WeDoctor has deployed 1,700 server units in public hospitals, established deep connections with 270 large Grade A tertiary hospitals, and achieved direct, deep integration with hospital financial and management systems. By building a medical data platform that connects hospitals, insurance companies, and patients, WeDoctor can help insurers reduce the claims settlement cycle from 2–3 weeks to just 2–3 minutes. The Ruiyi Artificial Intelligence Research Center, founded by Zhejiang University with support from WeDoctor, will also leverage innovative technologies such as big data and cloud computing to provide users with comprehensive, self-service health monitoring and health management services, helping health insurance members identify optimal medical solutions.

“Family Guardian” is the first online internet medical health insurance product in WeDoctor’s ACO series. In the future, WeDoctor will collaborate with ZhongAn and other insurance companies to launch health protection products tailored for individuals and pharmacies, while also developing a “premium” version of its WeDoctor ACO product priced at RMB 6,000 per year. This premium offering will include personalized health check-ups combining online and offline services, comprehensive medical appointment coordination, and healthcare service coverage.

As China’s largest internet healthcare platform and the country’s first online insurance company, WeDoctor and ZhongAn Insurance have entered into a strategic partnership, marking the first-ever alignment between the supply side of internet healthcare and the payment side in China. Going forward, the two parties will jointly focus on analyzing the medical-seeking behaviors of their vast user base, leverage big healthcare data to develop more refined health insurance products, and accelerate exploration of innovative areas such as the cross-sector integration of internet healthcare and insurance.

Representatives from both companies, including Liao Jieyuan, Chairman and CEO of WeDoctor; Chen Jin, CEO of ZhongAn Insurance; Su Yingqi, President of WeDoctor; Zhao Yu, Vice President of WeDoctor; and Liu Haijiao, General Manager of the Health Insurance Business Unit at ZhongAn Insurance, attended the strategic cooperation signing ceremony.