Beyond a platform, Ping An Good Doctor aiming to be a pillar of China's healthcare sector

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Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited

Mar 16, 2022, 03:13 ET

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, March 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- In the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ping An Good Doctor's value proposition of providing users with an "easier, faster and more affordable" digital health experience found resonance with all segments of society.

There is still a long way to go in the global fight against the epidemic. Last year, the emergence of new variants led to a significant strain on China's healthcare ecosystem.

Ping An Good Doctor, China's leading digital health services platform, has played a major role in limiting the spread and severity of the epidemic.

Facilitating more than 1.27 billion consultations last year, Ping An Good Doctor helped provide consistent, high-quality medical and healthcare services helping reduce group gatherings and social contact avoiding cross infection and ultimately easing pressure on the medical ecosystem.

Over the past two years, China's healthcare consumers have also become accustomed to digital health services. Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy, estimates that China's digital health market will be worth RMB1.5 trillion by 2025 due to the widespread acceptance of online healthcare services.

"Ping An Good Doctor provided the building blocks for its endeavors to satisfy everyone's medical and health needs, alleviate the pressure on social medical and health resources, and support the 'Healthy China 2030' Initiative," stated Fang Weihao, Chairman and CEO of Ping An Good Doctor.

With broad-based regulatory support for online healthcare, Ping An Good Doctor, which saw paying users increase by six million over the previous year, is confident of building a competitive moat.

Having built an ecosystem that includes more than 48,000 in-house and external doctors as well as partnerships with more than 3,600 hospitals, Ping An Good Doctor aims to become a key pillar of China's healthcare sector.

A new strategy for a new era

Ping An Good Doctor has embarked on a three-prong effort with a new strategy, Strategy 2.0 Continuum.

Firstly, it will improve its service offerings for three different types of payers - individual customers, corporate clients and corporate employees.

Individual customers now receive an upgraded service experience with paying members getting specialty service packages and membership products.

For corporate clients, Ping An Good Doctor is accelerating service coverage among the financial customer base of the member companies of the Ping An Group.

Meanwhile, Ping An Good Doctor also operates a one-stop corporate employee health management platform that offers effective solutions to address enterprises' major pain points, namely a dearth of available medical and health management systems, poor user experience, and a shortage of resources.

Having earlier successfully integrated with companies across the sprawling Ping An Group, Ping An Good Doctor has the necessary experience to service large corporate clients.

The platform aims to target a potential market 310 million corporate employees.

Family doctor memberships

Ping An Good Doctor has also developed an exclusive membership-based family doctor model to accommodate traffic from various channels. By specifying "family doctors" for users, Ping An Good Doctor aims to build up trust between the platform and customers converting passive users into active ones.

With more than 48,000 in-house and external doctors as well as health management specialists, nutritionists, and counseling psychologists in 20 specialties, the platform promises to meet diverse medical and health demands.

In 2021, Ping An Good Doctor also expanded a network of renowned doctors that have been selected based on strict selection criteria, with more than 1,100 contracted external doctors bolstering the professional image of the platform.

As a result, Ping An Good Doctor effectively caters to health, sub-health, disease, chronic illness, and eldercare management needs. As population ageing accelerates, digitalized system that enables tiered diagnosis and treatment will be key in the post-coronavirus era.

These family doctors have responded to queries within a minute in 99% of all scenarios over the past year and can help establish a strong link between the platform and its userbase over the years.

Not just an online phenomenon

Over the past decade, Ping An Good Doctor has also spent considerable resources to build a comprehensive online-to-offline (O2O) medical services network.

Apart from partnerships with hospitals, Ping An Good Doctor has partnered with 202,000 pharmacies representing 34% of all pharmacies across China. Ping An Good Doctor has set up 225 central warehouses ensuring one-hour drug delivery in 140 cities.

It has also partnered with more than 96,000 health checkup providers.

As a result, users can secure a diverse range of offline services such as dental or beauty care services or door-to-door nursing or even order health products.

Using family doctor memberships as a driver for this ecosystem, users can get online, in-store, and home-delivered services via a uniform provider management system that has effective controls over services, people, procedures, and processes.

For example, more than 1.9 million checkups were conducted over the platform with nearly two-fifth of users using the native checkup report interpretation service.

Promoting sustainable development

With medical service revenue comprising 31.2% of total revenue, Ping An Good Doctor is offering more than just access to online healthcare as it is becoming an important intermediary in China's public health system which receives nearly ten billion medical visits each year.

Not just serving its payers and empowering health service providers, the platform is strengthening the basic healthcare service in needy regions, addressing difficulties in seeing doctors and helping solve cumbersome diagnosis and treatment processes.

Rated 'A' on the MSCI ESG INDEX, a global renowned social and corporate governance index, Ping An Good Doctor has become a leading example of sustainable enterprise among publicly listed entities in Greater China.

"In 2022, Ping An Good Doctor will continue to strengthen the foundations and promote growth while maintaining stability," added Fang. "The Company will do its utmost to better serve its users, give back to society, and reward shareholders."

SOURCE Ping An Healthcare and Technology Company Limited