Ping An Launches Mobile Medical Insurance Payment Platform Following WeChat and Alipay

Starting June 15, Shenzhen residents can make online medical insurance payments via a mobile app at seven public Grade A tertiary hospitals, including Shenzhen People’s Hospital, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, and Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. Ping An announced the official launch of the pilot program for mobile payment using medical insurance cards.

It is reported that 20 hospitals in Shenzhen have currently partnered with Ping An. Seven of them—Shenzhen People’s Hospital, Peking University Shenzhen Hospital, Shenzhen Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, Luohu Hospital Group, Southern Medical University, Nanshan People’s Hospital, and The University of Hong Kong–Shenzhen Hospital—will serve as the first batch of pilot hospitals for trial operations. Among these, Shenzhen People’s Hospital, as the first hospital in China to pilot end-to-end mobile payments using medical insurance cards, will engage in an exclusive partnership with Ping An.

Previously, WeChat and Alipay separately launched mobile medical insurance payment services in Shenzhen. Medical insurance users in Shenzhen can bind their medical insurance cards to WeChat or Alipay respectively to enable online payments for covered medical expenses. How exactly does Ping An, the insurance giant, operate its mobile medical insurance payment service? What are its new highlights?

According to VCBeat, the core vehicle for Ping An’s mobile medical insurance payment is the Ping An Social Security Wallet.The greatest advantage of the Ping An Social Security Wallet is its seamless integration with hospital medical processes. As a plugin for hospital healthcare apps, it is embedded throughout the entire patient journey, covering pre-consultation, during-consultation, and post-consultation stages.

It is worth noting that Ping An’s mobile medical insurance payment solution adopts a platform-based model. The Ping An Social Security Wallet, functioning as a plugin, can be integrated into hospitals’ proprietary apps as well as third-party platforms. By linking their social security cards and bank cards through the Ping An Social Security Wallet interface, users can enable one-click payment for both medical insurance-covered and out-of-pocket expenses during medical visits.

Previously, VCBeat interviewed Zhang Jiang, Deputy General Manager of Ping An Ventures, who revealed that companies invested in by Ping An are integrated into Ping An’s existing businesses or products through various means.Clearly, the online medical insurance payment function of Ping An will gradually be integrated into the major companies invested in or partnered with by Ping An.

In addition to its proprietary Ping An Good Doctor app, Ping An has also penetrated the entire healthcare industry chain through investments, partnerships, and other means.

Ping An has been an investor in the diabetes chronic disease management platform “Zhangshang Tangyi” and the pharmaceutical O2O platform “Yaogeili.” In the health checkup sector, Ping An has invested in Meinian Onehealth Healthcare and Ciming Health Checkup. In the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector, it has invested in Yunnan Baiyao and participated in the privatization of WuXi AppTec. In the medical device sector, Ping An participated in the privatization of Mindray. In the online insurance platform space, Ping An has invested in Datebao and ZhongAn Insurance.

In the consumer-facing (C-end) mobile payment sector, WeChat and Alipay have already amassed massive user bases, a key asset that Ping An currently lacks. Consequently, Ping An has chosen to partner with business-facing (B-end) entities to deploy its mobile medical insurance payment services. In contrast, WeChat and Alipay can directly reach consumer users to promote this service.

Regardless of the entry strategy chosen, WeChat, Alipay, and Ping An have all laid out their mobile medical insurance payment businesses.The pace depends entirely on the speed of collaboration with hospitals. As early as two years ago, WeChatThrough “Smart Healthcare”,Alipay attempts to move hospital consultation processes online through its "Future Hospital" initiative.Ping An’s advantage lies in the experience and resources it has accumulated over the years in administering medical insurance programs.

In addition to basic self-service payment, Ping An Medical Insurance’s online unified payment platform will be deeply integrated with hospitals’ backend Hospital Information Systems (HIS). It supports functions such as appointment registration, waiting-list notifications, laboratory test alerts, medication pickup reminders, prescription payments, and payments for laboratory and diagnostic tests, thereby fully engaging in the entire patient journey—pre-consultation, during consultation, and post-consultation. Users can complete pre-consultation arrangements from home, including finding a physician, making real-name appointment registrations online, and making online payments. Refund applications are also highly convenient, with the system automatically processing refunds to the user via the original payment method.

At the beginning of this year, Ma Mingzhe, Chairman of Ping An Group, identified healthcare as one of the two core strategic pillars for Ping An’s future, with health management centered on electronic health records (EHRs) and a mobile health steward platform. Electronic health records constitute the core resource of medical big data, which must be built upon a comprehensive foundation of medical informatization. This is precisely why Ping An’s online medical insurance payment platform can achieve deep integration with hospital Hospital Information Systems (HIS).

Furthermore, Ping An is building a data service platform called “Health Cloud,” with the aim of becoming a precise and professional medical data operation service provider. Another core product in Ping An’s healthcare layout is “Yibao Yizhangtong” (Medical Insurance One-Account Pass), a smart medical insurance management and service system established by Ping An for medical insurance systems across China. By integrating with local medical insurance systems, it assiststo enhance the user experience and service efficiency of medical insurance. Currently, "Yibao Yizhangtong" has signed partnerships with over 100 cities participating in the national medical insurance scheme.

The Future Wars Across All Industries Will Be Fought Over Big Data, Making Healthcare Big Data the Coveted “Prize” in a Fierce Race Among Competitors.

It is reported that Tencent will help the Shenzhen Human Resources and Social Security Bureau reengineer the processes of its internal business systems, while expanding business channels and innovating service models. Furthermore, Tencent will assist the bureau in establishing a private cloud platform to improve the utilization efficiency of infrastructure such as servers and storage devices, thereby enhancing operational efficiency on one hand and reducing operations and maintenance costs on the other, to meet new demands driven by business growth.

Furthermore, Tencent will conduct in-depth analysis and mining of the data accumulated by human resources and social security departments, and export the results to provide rational and scientific data references for government policy formulation.

Public information shows that by the end of 2015, the number of participants in Shenzhen's social security medical insurance exceeded 12 million. With the continuously increasing number of insured individuals, it has become more urgent to leverage internet tools to improve the efficiency of medical insurance payments.

In fact, Ping An has long been exploring the medical insurance sector, accumulating years of experience particularly in the management of medical insurance funds. The medical insurance administrative services in Xiamen, in which Ping An Pension Insurance participated, have reduced the growth rate of medical insurance expenses in Xiamen by 4%. This constitutes the “Ping An Model” established in Xiamen: a public-private partnership combining government leadership with insurance company operations; an integrated urban-rural management approach that unifies coverage for urban employees, urban residents, and participants in the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme; and a service model that integrates professional risk control with one-stop immediate settlement.

Ping An has also independently developed an intelligent medical expense audit system, which helps healthcare security authorities strengthen fund management, ensure fund safety, improve utilization efficiency, and effectively control the use of medical resources.Moreover, Ping An has established the Ping An Smart Medical Insurance System through information technology. At its core, this system leverages an operational engine built upon knowledge bases for pharmaceuticals, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and medical consumables to audit hospital expenses.

This also endows Ping An’s online medical insurance payment platform with more robust capabilities for managing and controlling online medical insurance payments, particularly in ensuring the security of fund settlements and information transmission, which constitutes a significant advantage for Ping An’s further expansion into hospitals across China.

It is reported that in the next phase, the Ping An Medical Insurance Online Platform will further advance compatibility with commercial insurance integration, enabling one-click payment for “basic medical insurance + out-of-pocket expenses + commercial insurance,” thereby achieving full circulation of mobile medical insurance payments. Ping An will also provide more smart healthcare services to meet customers’ payment needs across various scenarios, such as cross-hospital payments and credit-based payments. Additionally, it will address customers’ out-of-hospital health needs, including purchasing medications at designated medical insurance pharmacies and collecting prescriptions at community health service centers affiliated with hospitals.