Techall Online + DXY: How Insurance Integrates and Powers Internet Healthcare Product Ecosystems?
Established just six months ago, Taikang Online, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Taikang Life Insurance, has engaged in multiple rounds of deep collaboration with internet giants such as Taobao, 360, and Tencent within an exceptionally short timeframe. Notable initiatives include “Leyebao,” launched in partnership with Taobao, and “Feichangbao,” developed in cooperation with Qihoo 360. The widespread recognition Taikang Online has garnered stems not merely from its backing by Taikang Life Insurance; rather, what has earned it particular acclaim within the industry is its adherence to the “short, flat, and fast” internet-driven operational model.
In terms of collaboration, in addition to traditional internet giants, Taikang Online will also partner with enterprises in the broader health sector that possess advantages in patient-doctor resources or products—such as internet healthcare providers (including those serving vertical populations and specific disease segments), innovative public medical institutions, mid-to-high-end private medical institutions, health service organizations specializing in physical examinations and rehabilitation, precision medicine companies, and smart wearable device manufacturers—to seek new market opportunities.
This is the first installment of a series, focusing on: Taikang Online’s multi-faceted collaboration with DXY.
Huang Qinqin, Commercial Director of the Big Health Business Department at Taikang Online, stated, “Dingxiangyuan is currently a leading enterprise in the internet healthcare industry. Taikang Online values Dingxiangyuan’s excellent corporate culture and product team, including its multi-domain product portfolio, which constitute Dingxiangyuan’s key strengths. Based on this, Taikang Online has engaged in multifaceted cooperation with Dingxiangyuan, which will play a highly positive role in expanding channels and broadening population coverage for future insurance products.”
In response, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Li Tiantian, founder and chairman of DXY, to gain deeper insights from his perspective on how the integration of internet technology, healthcare, and commercial insurance creates value.
Li Tiantian
Founder and Chairman of DXY, Visiting Professor at the Second Military Medical University, Executive Director of the Zhejiang Health Industry Promotion Association
In 2000, Li Tiantian founded DXY. Over the past 16 years, DXY has built China’s largest medical academic forum and a suite of mobile products, and has fully established offline clinics. Through a professional and authoritative content-sharing platform, extensive and comprehensive data accumulation, and standardized, high-quality medical services, DXY connects hospitals, physicians, patients, pharmaceutical companies, and insurers. It serves tens of millions of general users and boasts 5 million professional users, including 2 million physician users, of whom 1.37 million are certified physicians.
Li Tiantian told VCBeat, “Taikang Online is China’s earliest internet medical insurance company, with a strong internet DNA. DXY and Taikang Online align closely on several core points, and Taikang is willing to collaborate with us to jointly demonstrate our respective value and service philosophy. Therefore, we quickly reached an agreement. DXY provides specialized medical services, while Taikang Online designs specialized insurance products for these services, with both parties working together to build an ‘Internet + Healthcare + Commercial Insurance’ ecosystem.”
New Pathway: Commercial Insurance + Offline Clinics + Chronic Disease Management
Regarding the cooperation model, Li Tiantian stated, “Our collaboration with Taikang Online primarily involves two aspects: offline and online.”
Regarding offline operations, Li Tiantian stated, “Commercial insurance requires the support of a medical service platform. DXY’s offline medical service platform, DXY Clinic, provides patients with health management and medical services. Meanwhile, sales of products such as Taikang Online’s health insurance are facilitated through the offline clinical services offered by DXY Clinic.”
According to Li Tiantian, in addition to offline collaborations, DXY also aims to partner with Taikang Online through remote chronic disease management to provide health management services for both parties’ populations of patients with chronic diseases. This initiative seeks to help users control the onset and progression of their conditions, thereby reducing and slowing the frequency of complications.
Building on their offline partnership, DXY and Taikang Online have launched an online collaboration. Initially, DXY established a Chronic Disease Management Center in Hangzhou, leveraging devices such as the Tangdaifu blood glucose meter to collect patient data and aggregate it onto its platform. Through data analysis and targeted interventions, healthcare professionals—including physicians, nurses, and dietitians—manage patients’ blood glucose levels and other key health indicators.
Secondly, by leveraging the "Dingxiang Xiaotang" WeChat official account, real-time interaction with patients is facilitated to enable remote guidance and chronic disease management, thereby reducing the frequency of complications. As the service provider, Taikang Online integrates its products into the chronic disease management process and utilizes the service channels jointly established by DXY and Taikang Online to provide patients with comprehensive solutions.
A New Perspective: Integrating Insurance Services into the Internet Healthcare Product Ecosystem
Li Tiantian stated, “The collaboration between DXY’s health management products and Taikang Online in the field of internet insurance has delivered significant value to both enterprises and their service recipients.”
For patients, its value is primarily reflected in the following two aspects:
1. Insurance companies help patients bear medical risks, thereby reducing the financial burden of seeking medical care;
2. With insurance companies assuming the risk, patients have greater recognition of and trust in DXY’s health products;
Regarding DXY, Li Tiantian told VCBeat: “Our biggest takeaway from collaborating with Taikang Online is that it can connect many of DXY’s services to form a unified platform. DXY offers a wide range of services, including clinics, health information systems, and health management. During the process of integrating with Taikang Online’s insurance offerings, we discovered that many of these services can be effectively integrated.”
It is reported that in March 2016, DXY launched a SaaS-based clinic management system, “DXY Cloud Manager,” to assist small and medium-sized medical institutions with internal information management. This system offers the same functionalities as the management platform used by DXY Clinics, adhering to rigorous standards for clinical pathways, medical quality control, and the formulation of standardized protocols.
Following discussions with Taikang Online, Taikang Online and DXY explored the standard integration of DXY Cloud Manager. Should the two parties reach a partnership agreement, it would mean that by enabling transparency and data sharing with Taikang Online, healthcare institutions using this system could simultaneously receive commercial insurance coverage and support from Taikang Online. This would extend services such as health management and commercial insurance to a broader range of medical institutions and clinics, representing a new business opportunity created through the resource integration between DXY and Taikang Online.
New Starting Point: Collaborating with Insurance Companies, with Patient Interests as the Top Priority
Li Tiantian stated, “For patients, the return on investment is particularly critical. Prioritizing the benefits delivered to patients is our foremost concern; without this focus, our products and services would easily lose their intended purpose. Therefore, throughout our collaborations, all aspects of product and service design, workflow development, standardization, and risk control are grounded in safeguarding patient interests. We must first ensure the effectiveness of the service, confirm that product risks are manageable, and verify that the service delivers tangible value to patients—these are the primary considerations.”
In the early stages of the partnership, DXY did not prioritize revenue as a core requirement. Instead, the focus was placed on ensuring smooth service workflows and identifying any issues within the service processes. Only after refining the product and achieving seamless operations in these areas would considerations be given to establishing a business model—but that is a matter for later discussion.
New Direction: “One Horizontal, One Vertical” Outlines a New Form of Future Cooperation
Li Tiantian stated, “The ‘horizontal and vertical’ framework represents our overall plan for future cooperation with Taikang Online.”
“The First Vertical” refers to DXY’s ongoing collaboration with Taikang Online in the field of single-disease management, exemplified by current offerings such as smoking cessation insurance and diabetes insurance. In the future, this partnership will gradually expand to cover areas including cancer screening and prevention, as well as women’s health, maternity, and infant care, conducting in-depth exploration tailored to specific diseases and medical specialties.
“The Horizontal Line” refers to the joint penetration of Taikang Online’s services and DXY’s products into these medical institutions through clinic coverage, which plays a significant role in driving the formation of the entire ecosystem.
Regarding future collaboration between the two parties, Li Tiantian expressed a positive outlook, stating, “Both sides should continue to seek breakthroughs on the service end, leveraging standardized processes and modular frameworks to obtain more comprehensive data, thereby enabling the design of more targeted products.” Building on this foundation, in addition to the already launched smoking cessation clinic, Taikang Online and DXY plan to introduce a children’s HMO insurance product.
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