'Easier, faster and more affordable': Ping An Good Doctor's new strategy builds on solid foundation

SHANGHAI, Oct. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In six years, Ping An Good Doctor has excelled across various metrics becoming China's leading healthcare platform –average daily consultations now exceed 1 million visits far outpacing the figure set by peer platforms. 

Meanwhile, the total number of registered users on the platform exceed 400 million halfway through the year. In the same period, cumulative consultations were close to 1.2 billion; in comparison, 480 million consultations were recorded in 2018.

Such achievements have been the result of a six-year strategy, Strategy 1.0, that was focused on rapid expansion enhancing the company's footprint across the market, (online) channels, products and services.

Following the success of Strategy 1.0, Ping An Good Doctor announced on its Investor Day in Shanghai a new plan for the future – Strategic 2.0 Continuum.

"Ping An Good Doctor is sharpening its plans for the future with Strategic 2.0 Continuum, which will focus on premium B2C users and introduce a Family Doctor Membership that will offer differentiated solutions to serve the multi-layered medical needs of a diverse population," stated Fang Weihao, Chairman and CEO of Ping An Good Doctor.

"Meanwhile, we will continue to improve our O2O services and ultimately look to provide all of our customers with an 'easier, faster and more affordable' user experience."

In particular, Ping An Good Doctor will introduce "Family Doctor Memberships", a product that will deliver "1 family doctor + 5 specialized services + 1 health profile " as a core service to users. Each user will also get a full-lifecycle electronic health profile and secure appropriate O2O healthcare services.

A new strategy for a new era

Focused on three fronts - an improved value proposition centered on the family doctor membership product, an ecosystem empowerment (involving efforts to uplift various stakeholders within the Ping An Group and elsewhere in China's vast healthcare sector) and integration of a three-tier business model (online healthcare users, healthcare providers and corporate healthcare users) – Strategic 2.0 Continuum should see the platform grow sustainably towards profitability in the coming years.

Possessing the industry's largest in-house medical team with nearly 2000 members, an effective offline network (that ensured the firm did not rely solely on e-commerce) and user acquisition capabilities across multiple channels, Ping An Good Doctor has built a solid foundation.

At the same time, there is valuable synergy yet to be explored in a country with growing healthcare management needs.

China's healthcare sector is projected to grow by more than 10% annually leading to healthcare expenditure increasing by RMB6 trillion in the first five years of the decade alone. 

The effective promotion of the "Family Doctor Membership" will also help professionalize government medical services and achieve social healthcare efficiency in a country where there's a mismatch in the supply and demand of medical resources. There's a dire need to improve the low utilization efficiency of medical services.

Meanwhile, the online healthcare sector has been instructed by relevant authorities to improve their value proposition so they can provide a differentiated service for individuals who have multi-layered and sophisticated needs within a large and diverse population.

Going beyond the user, integrating with internal and external stakeholders

Given how Ping An Good Doctor is a part of Ping An Group, China's largest insurance conglomerate, the platform has a strong network across China.

In many ways, Ping An Good Doctor has pioneered the "Insurance + Health Management" service in China and therefore has a significant first-mover advantage.

It can potentially serve 220 million financial customers (defined as those subscribing to various financial services like insurance services) that interact with various subsidiaries of the Ping An Group.

Currently, Ping An Good Doctor has secured 740,000 paid users arising from corporate healthcare channels. The Ping An Group has an employee base of 70 million employees. The corporate healthcare sector, which is also expected to see exponential growth in four years, currently is underserved and has a potential addressable market of 310 million corporate employees.

As such, there is a large market that will increasingly look for better and integrated online-and-offline healthcare services.

Ping An Good Doctor sees strong prospects in leveraging Ping An Group's integrated finance channels to offer medical and health service products with stronger synergies and higher value.

Apart from individuals and corporate customers, Ping An Good Doctor aims to play a valuable role servicing offline service providers as well.

As of 30 September 2021, Ping An Good Doctor has forged offline-to-online co-operation deals with 189,000 pharmacies, over 4,000 hospitals, around 1,700 checkup centers and more than 1,800 medical institutions, a network that keeps growing every month.

The alliances have laid a solid foundation for Ping An Good Doctor to tap corporate clients and introduce family doctor memberships.

Ultimately, Ping An Good Doctor aims to integrate three different types of business models – the health maintenance organization model popular in the United States, the new membership-based family doctor model and the O2O medical services model – to meet new and ambitious mid-term targets.

Ambitious mid-term targets set

Profit drivers are expected to increasingly transition towards membership-based fees with additional revenue set to arise from value-added services or offerings.

Other mid-term targets set by Ping An Good Doctor for the future include quadrupling the total paid userbase to 60 million and an ambition to become the top partner for medical care providers and healthcare providers.

In the bid to become the largest healthcare platform in the world, Ping An Good Doctor has grown aggressively but Strategic 2.0 Continuum has also seen the management declare an ambition to become profitable in the near term.

To this end, healthcare service revenue, which currently accounts for 28% of the revenue base, is forecasted to comprise more than half of all future sales.

Ping An Good Doctor remains confident of continuing the good work that has seen the firm become one of the top names globally in the nascent healthtech field.

With over 1,000 medical patents, top-notch healthcare AI-based technologies and a diagnosis accuracy rate that exceeds 95%, Ping An Good Doctor has a competitive moat like no other healthtech firm in China.

By leveraging Ping An Group's experience, technology, customers and resources, Ping An Good Doctor aims to offer a unique value proposition that will provide customers from all walks of life with an "easier, faster and more affordable" user experience.

Ultimately, Strategic 2.0 Continuum will bridge the gap between providers and payers in China's medical and healthcare industry and help the country reach its long-term healthcare goals.

SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited