Diabetes Management and Insurance Integration: Insights from the Diabetes Education and Innovative Payment Summit

On the afternoon of February 25, 2016, the “Summit on Innovative Payment for Diabetes Education and Management,” initiated by the Education and Management Group of the Chinese Diabetes Society, co-hosted by the Mobile Health Research Institute of Health News, organized by Zhangshang Tangyi, and co-organized by VCBeat, was officially convened.

The discussion was highly intense, with a primary focus on several key points:

1. Challenges, Pain Points, and Opportunities in Diabetes Education and Management;

2. In the era of mobile health, is chronic disease management a significant opportunity for insurance companies?

3. How does mobile health assist in chronic disease management? What are the entry points and challenges?

4. How Can Internet Startups Achieve a Win-Win Outcome with the Healthcare Sector, Physicians, and Patients?

5. How does capital view the integration of chronic disease management and insurance?

Below are the key highlights from the guests’ discussions on the topic, curated by VCBeat.

Professor Guo Xiaohui, Head of the Education and Management Group of the Diabetes Branch of the Chinese Medical Association, and Director of the Department of Endocrinology at Peking University First Hospital:

1. Extensive data indicate that patients who achieve optimal glycemic control are those who regularly undergo blood glucose monitoring at healthcare facilities; through effective management, they can maintain stable blood glucose levels, thereby reducing associated treatment costs.

2. Previously, the quality of chronic disease management at the primary care level could not be evaluated; however, with the advent of mobile health, assessment mechanisms have become available.

Professor Sun Zilin, Deputy Head of the Education and Management Group of the Chinese Diabetes Society, and Vice Dean of the Medical School of Southeast University:

1、Diabetes management plays a critically important role in driving change. How can we establish a sustainable mechanism to better implement our vital diabetes management programs, ensuring that their value delivers tangible benefits to patients? While we have always relied on the innate compassion of healthcare professionals, we are now further exploring new mechanisms and approaches.

2. In the era of "Internet Plus," apps for diabetes education and management provide pathways to address certain challenges, thereby enhancing their effectiveness in diabetes education and management itself, as well as in patient group engagement and follow-up care.

Professor Chen Wei, Director of the Department of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and Chairman of the Beijing Diabetes Prevention and Control Association:

1. The first pain point in diabetes management is that patients’ blood glucose control is not truly integrated with their daily life management.

2. The second pain point is that physicians are not truly integrated into patients’ glucose management.

3. Currently, all management services are provided free of charge. The consequence of this no-fee model is that patients fail to value physicians’ services, while physicians are unwilling to have their professional worth undervalued.

4. At the technical level, current diabetes education and management lack precision, resulting in relatively superficial outcomes. Therefore, I believe it is essential to leverage social forces and app-based models to align the interests of patients with those of physicians, which is even more critical.

Zhang Lin, Deputy General Manager of Ping An Pension Insurance & Investment Company of China, Ltd.:

1. In fact, it is not a matter of whether insurers are willing to pay, nor is it discrimination against chronic disease management. For insurance companies, chronic disease management represents an opportunity.

2. There are certain challenges for insurance companies to engage in chronic disease management. The first issue is that the current market space for commercial insurance is limited. If policies were relaxed to open up the commercial insurance sector, insurers would be able to offer a wider range of diversified insurance products. We are willing to leverage our high-efficiency advantages under government guidance.

3. With this space established, we also need to facilitate information sharing. By enabling insurance companies to access relevant user information, they can design effective service plans, thereby achieving the national goal of building a multi-tiered social insurance system.

4. How can we develop diabetes insurance for individuals who pay premiums out-of-pocket? In fact, such insurance can incorporate health management services, including routine data collection and continuous medication reminders via a mobile app. Our current collaboration with Zhangshang Tangyi (Pocket Diabetes Doctor) serves as an excellent example. On one hand, the Zhangshang Tangyi app significantly facilitates patients’ self-management. On the other hand, we have obtained substantial data from Zhangshang Tangyi. Furthermore, our partnership with Zhangshang Tangyi has provided them with payment solutions.

5. At the level of healthcare reform, there is a widespread expectation that policy decisions will address two key issues. The first concerns mechanisms: as the payer, health insurance should establish a mechanism that safeguards the interests of all stakeholders, including service providers, patients, pharmaceutical suppliers, and other relevant parties. Second, health insurance provides certain tools—though not necessarily developed by insurers themselves—that facilitate communication between service providers and patients.

Kuang Ming, Founder and CEO of Zhangshang Tangyi:

1. In the era of mobile health, diabetes patient education has met the needs for convenience and personalization.

2. There are still many ideas to be implemented in terms of service support. Regarding tiered diagnosis and treatment, it is widely acknowledged that the training cycle is too long; leveraging informational tools and auxiliary means can help physicians manage a larger patient load and reduce unit costs.

3. Commercial insurance companies have traditionally selected healthy individuals with low risk. However, in the case of diabetes insurance, insurers face significant pressure and require highly refined calculations for costs and policy design. On the other hand, we also aim to reduce related expenses through patient management approaches.

4. From the perspective of Zhangshang Tangyi, we are an innovative enterprise. Our platform is highly patient-centric, and we provide a wide range of tools and methodologies to educate and empower healthcare professionals, thereby enhancing their efficiency while streamlining and eliminating barriers in patient communication. We not only deliver standardized yet personalized education to patients in need but also help explore how to establish commercial health insurance models in the future.

IDG Capital Partner Zhang Suyang:Over the past two decades, healthcare coverage has been insufficient. On one hand, public expectations for health are high, and average life expectancy has increased significantly. As prosperity rises, a large portion of the population aspires not only to longevity but also to healthy aging. Furthermore, there is a substantial need to increase overall insurance premiums in our country.

Lu Yingqin, Director of the Diabetes Services and Solutions Business Unit, Greater China, Medtronic Diabetes Business Group:Mobile healthcare provides significant convenience to patients and enables physicians to offer multi-site services, thereby making tiered management a viable and effective approach.

Zhou Bing, Editor-in-Chief of Health News and Executive Dean of the Mobile Health Research Institute:

1. The Internet cannot turn ordinary people into doctors or into individuals capable of providing medical services. In fact, the Internet merely enables existing physician resources to better release their service capacity, allowing current doctors to serve society more extensively and efficiently.

2. In the internet era, people often enjoy information for free. However, it is clearly inconsistent with this trend for doctors to provide such information free of charge in the healthcare sector. Therefore, in the internet era, we should embrace the concept of payment.