Ping An: Connecting the New Healthcare Ecosystem Through Payment Innovation

China’s healthcare reform is gaining momentum, extending from policies, hospitals, and physicians to pharmaceuticals, and ultimately penetrating the payment segment. At the core of the payment segment are the reform of basic medical insurance and the rise of commercial health insurance.

In this market worth tens of trillions, the insurance sector offers immense potential for growth, ranging from government-driven improvements in payment mechanisms and strong demand for private healthcare to customized needs on the internet. With significant opportunities at hand, Ping An has acted with remarkable decisiveness.

Ping An’s major business segments—pension insurance, health insurance, and investment—have each made aggressive moves, swiftly building their own empire integrating healthcare, the internet, and insurance through a well-coordinated combination of strategies.

Ping An’s collaborations with Pfizer, Tencent, and Legend Capital represent highly significant cross-sector partnerships for the company at present. As insurance is one of the most accessible and engaging products for such collaborations, Ping An holds substantial expectations for its medical partners.

Emphasis: Commercial Insurance Is a Vital Ally of Social Security

“Commercial insurance is a semi-public-welfare product.” This is how Zhang Lin, Deputy General Manager of Ping An Pension Insurance & Health Care Co., Ltd., understands commercial insurance. In contrast to the purely public-welfare nature of social security, commercial insurance possesses both public-welfare characteristics and a profit motive. This constitutes its most significant distinction from other products with purely commercial attributes.

Regarding the new round of healthcare security reforms, a crucial aspect is to maintain the public-welfare nature of social insurance while enhancing its efficiency and reducing waste, which requires leveraging the advantages of commercial insurance.

Zhang Lin asserted, “In the future, the administration of medical insurance should be entrusted to society rather than being solely managed by public sector entities; this represents an emerging trend.”

Zhang Lin believes that the integration of commercial health insurance into the medical insurance system can be approached from two aspects. First, commercial insurers can participate in the administration of social security, specifically by assisting in the management of medical insurance funds to optimize the utilization of existing capital reserves—for instance, allocating a portion of these funds toward health management initiatives. Second, commercial insurers can engage in critical illness insurance programs to address the issues of poverty caused or exacerbated by medical expenses.

Ping An has made significant inroads in both areas. This section focuses on Ping An’s efforts in the management of medical insurance funds, where it has established the Ping An Smart Medical Insurance System through information technology solutions.

Taking Xiamen as an example. According to Zhang Lin, the medical insurance administrative services in which Ping An Pension Insurance & Annuity Company has participated have reduced the growth rate of medical insurance expenditures 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 integrating professional risk control with one-stop immediate settlement. The intelligent medical expense audit system independently developed by Ping An helps medical insurance authorities strengthen fund oversight, ensure fund security, improve utilization efficiency, and effectively control the use of medical resources.

The core of Ping An Smart Medical Insurance System is an operational system built upon knowledge bases for pharmaceuticals, clinical diagnosis and treatment, and medical consumables, which conducts audits of hospital expenses.

Meanwhile, Ping An is also developing a knowledge platform for physicians, designed to assist general practitioners in managing patients’ daily care more effectively, thereby improving efficiency, increasing the number of patients each physician can oversee, and reducing costs. “We aim to comprehensively develop a complete suite of information services that integrates with hospitals, ensuring patients enjoy an optimal service experience throughout the entire diagnosis and treatment process.”

“Such a massive undertaking cannot be accomplished by Ping An alone,” Zhang Lin told VCBeat, expressing high expectations for the Medical Partner Competition, particularly in finding partners specializing in healthcare informatization. Historically, Ping An has preferred to collaborate with external entities across many sectors, resorting to in-house development only when suitable partners could not be found.

Therefore, amid the wave of healthcare insurance reform and the rise of commercial health insurance, numerous business opportunities will emerge. Ping An seeks to identify healthcare partners for collaborative growth.

Light: Health Insurance Is the Future Direction

Unlike pension insurance, health insurance is much lighter in nature and more directly addresses personalized needs. Although its current market share remains small, it is highly dynamic and holds significant potential, particularly in the internet sector.

Wu Xinchun, Assistant General Manager of Ping An Health Insurance, told VCBeat that Ping An Health Insurance attaches great importance to the Internet and has established Ping An Health Internet Company. By integrating with internet-based healthcare, this initiative has created numerous opportunities.

Ping An Health Internet Company’s flagship product is the Ping An Good Doctor app, which is distinguished by its provision of family doctor services. In 2015, Ping An Health Insurance also launched small-scale, lightweight digital health insurance products such as “Cancer Guardian” and “Maternal & Infant Guardian.” These products were initially promoted and sold on the Ping An Good Doctor app. “Products like ‘Cancer Guardian’ and ‘Maternal & Infant Guardian’ share common characteristics: they are small in scope and lightweight in design, enabling users to learn about them, read policy details, purchase coverage, and make payments entirely online,” introduced Wu Xinchun.

Wu Xinchun told VCBeat that the growth rate of health insurance has been very rapid, with annual growth exceeding 50% in recent years. The market size has also surpassed RMB 200 billion.

Wu Xinchun is highly supportive of the Medical Partner activities and offers several suggestions:

1. The health insurance sector is experiencing a strong upward trajectory; entrepreneurs can leverage this window of opportunity by integrating health insurance into their industry offerings to attract customers and complete the payment loop;

2. Ping An Health Insurance offers a wide range of products suitable for collaboration with medical partners. For instance, it actively promotes mid-to-high-end medical insurance products that address users’ healthcare needs—such as medical coverage, access to advanced medical devices and pharmaceuticals, premium services, and private physicians—thereby enabling precise targeting of specific customer segments.

3. Develop customized APP products for enterprises, embedding Ping An Good Doctor’s service scenarios within the customized apps. The enterprise’s logo, as well as information such as headline news and advertisements, can be displayed on the homepage of the Ping An Good Doctor APP.

Jointly: Building a Healthcare Ecosystem Centered on Insurance

Ping An Capital undertakes another critical mission for Ping An: establishing an insurance-centric ecosystem. In the healthcare sector, Ping An Capital has initially built a vast ecosystem through investments and mergers and acquisitions.

Currently, leveraging the Ping An Good Doctor app, Ping An has established an end-to-end service ecosystem encompassing initial consultations, follow-up visits, chronic disease management, and medication delivery. By tapping into existing offline medical resources, Ping An has rapidly contracted with thousands of physicians to provide initial and follow-up consultation services. In the areas of chronic disease management and medication delivery, Ping An has achieved its objectives through strategic investments. Notably, Ping An is an investor in Zhan Shang Tang Yi, a digital platform for diabetes management, as well as in Yao Gei Li, a pharmaceutical O2O (online-to-offline) service provider.

In the health checkup sector, Ping An has invested in Meinian Onehealth Healthcare and Ciming Health Checkup; in the pharmaceutical 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. On internet insurance platforms, Ping An has invested in Datebao and ZhongAn Insurance.

Companies invested in by Ping An are integrated into its existing businesses or products through various means. For instance, Zhangshang Tangyi (Pocket Sugar Doctor) has been linked with Ping An’s local medical insurance diabetes services, providing relevant chronic disease management services to Ping An’s health insurance customers. As the medication delivery service provider for the Ping An Good Doctor app, Yaogeli benefits from reciprocal synergy: physicians on the Ping An Good Doctor platform also offer medication consultation and guidance to users of the Yaogeli platform.

As for medical partners, Zhang Jiang, General Manager of Ping An Ventures, told VCBeat that as a payer of medical services, Ping An can provide various forms of assistance across different services and business models.

First, Ping An has 80 million insurance customers and is committed to providing them with better services and products. The products and services of startups can be integrated with Ping An’s vast customer base, as well as aligned with Ping An’s commercial insurance offerings and its third-party medical insurance administration services.

Second, from a capital perspective, Ping An operates its own financial services and investment arms, enabling it to invest in these enterprises. Moreover, Ping An offers comprehensive investment solutions that cover the entire corporate lifecycle, with dedicated institutional support available at the early, mid, and late stages.

At the same time, all of Ping An’s existing resources and platforms will be fully accessible to entrepreneurs participating in the “Medical Partner” Startup Competition.

Regarding investment planning in the healthcare sector, Zhang Jiang outlined Ping An’s four-point strategy: First, continue to increase investment in this field. Second, the scope of investment is not limited to internet healthcare but also extends to new biotechnologies, as well as medical services, medical devices, and clinics. Specifically, when selecting investment targets, Ping An places the greatest emphasis on a company’s innovation capability. “It should possess certain industry competitive barriers, represent the broader direction of industry development, or be able to integrate with or complement Ping An’s existing business.”

 

—————Divider Requiring Close Attention—————

Nearly 200 companies have already registered. The registration deadline for this competition is February 13—time waits for no one. Please register immediately in accordance with the guidelines provided by VCBeat. The registration link is provided again below.

http://www.cyzone.cn/features/hcpartners/

You can also scan the QR code below to follow VCBeat. Simply send us a message with your inquiries, and the VCBeat team will provide comprehensive and enthusiastic answers.