With the popularization of the Internet and the rapid development of information technology, the original business models of retail, logistics, finance, catering and many other industries have been reconstructed, and the medical and health industry is becoming the next outlet for the change of Internet technology.
Driven by policies, the Internet medical market has maintained rapid growth in recent years, and its proportion in China's total health care expenditure has also been increasing. From 2015 to 2019, the compound annual growth rate of the Internet medical industry was 44%, which was in a state of super rapid development. According to the prediction of IQVIA, the scale of Internet healthcare will expand at a compound annual growth rate of more than 20% in the next three years.
In recent years, the proportion of Internet medical industry revenue in China's total health expenditure has been increasing. In 2019, Internet medical treatment accounted for 1%. Although the proportion is increasing, there is still a lot of potential development space in the future. Since 2020, in the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, the all-round advantages of Internet medicine have become prominent. At the same time, online diagnosis and treatment, medical e-commerce, online payment, etc. have been strongly supported by policies, and the industry has entered a fast lane of development.
Recently, on an industry forum, Li Shengli, CEO of Fosun Health, told reporters of the 21st Century Economic Report that Internet medicine has entered a new stage. From the initial period of Internet medical care, which focuses on light inquiry and shallow services such as consultation, online prescription and follow-up, to the new period of extension of traditional physical hospital services, which is represented by the whole course of disease management.
"Under the dual trend of medical consumption upgrading and Internet medical regulation upgrading, how to get through the whole course management of patients, how to solve the uneven distribution of medical resources, and how to alleviate the economic burden of patients have become the three core pain points that Internet medical enterprises need to solve urgently." Li Shengli said that to provide one-stop management of the whole course, first of all, there must be sufficient supply of medical resources, Including doctors, hospitals and other important components of the medical and health system; Secondly, we should also focus on patients and return medical services to the essence of "serious medical care".
Internet medical enterprises seek breakthrough
At present, from the perspective of the overall pattern of the Internet medical industry, public Internet hospitals account for about 70% of the Internet hospitals in the country, which has an absolute advantage in number; Some top three hospitals with outstanding medical resources have presented eye-catching operating data, which has greatly facilitated cross regional medical treatment for patients. Internet medical enterprises have played the roles of online patient diversion, operation capability and technical force supplement, cross regional optimization and allocation of medical resources, and integration of out of hospital resources.
According to the analysis of Ernst&Young's team, the core growth elements of Internet health care are "needs and policies". Although the relevant policies have been gradually opened up in the past two years, there are inherent differences in the business logic of health care and the Internet. The leading enterprises are still struggling to explore the profit model.
At the initial stage, Internet medical enterprises started with light entry and established traffic barriers. Representative enterprises include DXY, Weiyi and Chunyu doctors. As Internet medical enterprises mainly provide free services, their revenue capacity is poor. The establishment of traffic barriers at this stage also eliminated a large number of Internet medical enterprises.
The remaining head enterprises seek new business models in different ways to achieve commercial profits. When Internet medical enterprises tried to charge customers, they found that it was not easy. There were two major problems:
First, the Internet medical payment system is not perfect, the national medical insurance and commercial insurance are relatively blank, and patients pay a large proportion;
Second, the Internet industry and the medical industry are different in nature and difficult to integrate.
The medical industry is a strong regulatory industry. The government has set limits on the business model, drug circulation, and medical insurance coverage of Internet hospitals. The policy gap makes it difficult for Internet medical players to move forward.
At the same time, the high added value of the medical industry is mainly reflected in the face-to-face interaction between doctors and patients, while the Internet diagnosis and treatment means are limited, doctors and patients can not achieve offline diagnosis and treatment, and the trust between doctors and patients is difficult to establish.
In addition, the medical industry has a direct impact on national life safety. China's high-quality doctor resources are highly concentrated in public hospitals. Internet medical platform resources are relatively weak, the level of diagnosis and treatment is limited, and security assurance is insufficient. Due to the different attributes of the Internet and the medical industry, the model of "Internet+" in other industries cannot be simply copied to the medical industry, and new breakthroughs need to be found.
Against the background of COVID-19 epidemic and loose policies, 2020 will become a turning point for Internet medicine. The government has issued a series of Internet medical industry norms to promote the development of Internet medical. At the same time, users' online diagnosis and treatment habits have been cultivated, laying the foundation for subsequent users to retain. Internet medical enterprises are also seeking breakthroughs from multiple entry points, trying to achieve closed-loop industrial chain.
Previously, Wu Xiaoying, co managing partner of Ernst&Young's life science and health care industry, pointed out in an interview with reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald and others that in Internet medicine, taking remote diagnosis and treatment as an example, five very critical links need to be involved to obtain patients, diagnose diseases, issue prescription drugs, track drug efficacy, and promote further diagnosis, These five links form a closed loop.
"Due to the lack of offline support for the pure online model, there are some key pain points that need to be solved in these five links, such as how to obtain more patients, whether offline diagnosis can be carried out only by asking questions, the timeliness of drug prescription distribution, how to objectively evaluate the efficacy of patients after medication, and how to encourage patients to continue Medication, continuous follow-up, etc., these problems may be some of its key pain points. In addition, the policy on remote diagnosis and treatment also needs careful research and analysis. " Wu Xiaoying said.
How to break the "bottleneck" of Internet medicine?
Driven by the trend of digitalization, especially the epidemic situation, Internet medicine has also experienced a blowout. However, behind the industry outlet, pain points frequently appear.
On the one hand, in terms of the Internet medical platform, most of the medical resources are external cooperative doctors. Although there is cooperation and support relationship with offline medical institutions, the overall relevance is not high; On the other hand, the online platform has weak collaboration ability with offline medical resources, and many treatment services are still offline. These factors, to some extent, limit the medical capability of the platform.
In this regard, Li Shengli pointed out that there are sufficient medical resources for Internet based physical hospitals. High level hospitals also have a high level of diagnosis and treatment capacity, but mainly based on the online service of the hospital, almost all of them are "single" Internet hospitals, and there is still much room for the release of momentum of high-quality medical resources.
"As a supplement to offline medical institutions, Internet medicine is based on offline hospitals, but it is not simply to move offline business to online, but to build a health management platform covering the whole life cycle and scenario of users, and form a full link service of 'medicine, medicine, insurance, and health', which is also an effective way to alleviate the uneven distribution of medical resources and optimize patients' medical expenditure." Li Shengli said that the specific way to do it needs two legs: take Fosun Health as an example, on the one hand, tap the ecological advantages of the medical industry of Fosun system, on the other hand, it is scientific and technological empowerment, driven by scientific innovation.
At present, the lack of Internet medicine also includes the payment side. Internet medical enterprises have generally covered the links of medicine and medicine, but the lack of payment links has always been the bottleneck of development. On the one hand, there are few medical insurance payments on Internet medical platforms. In contrast, although public Internet hospitals are more strongly supported by medical insurance, cost control is the overall trend of medical insurance, and the payment space is limited. On the other hand, the commercial insurance payment mode of the Internet medical platform has not yet taken shape, and some enterprises are trying to launch payment products in cooperation with insurance companies.
Li Shengli mentioned that for serious illness beyond the scope of medical insurance reimbursement, enterprises need to upgrade the single model of serious illness relief to a diversified health insurance matrix covering "medicine+medicine+insurance" and other fields, provide patients with professional health value-added services, optimize medical expenditure costs, meet more diversified and personalized health consumption needs, and at the same time, It has also become a powerful supplement to medical insurance. At the same time, build a digital, integrated and intelligent hospital with benchmarking effect based on the cloud platform, gradually open up internal and external medical institutions, uniformly manage hospitals, doctors and users, and gradually realize the seamless connection of online and offline data and services.
"The data exchange of the bottom layer cloud platform provides an important foundation for the online and offline integrated whole course management of specialized disease groups." Li Shengli said that to effectively manage the whole course of patients, the monitoring and health intervention of daily data outside the hospital is the key. In this regard, Fosun Health, on the one hand, relies on its own offline hospitals, specialist doctors, and doctor groups, in conjunction with other top three hospitals in China, and on the other hand, builds an online health management team. Based on family health records, Fosun Health gets through in hospital diagnosis and treatment data and out of hospital health intervention data, and finally realizes the online and offline integrated health ecosystem.
(Author: Ji Yuanyuan Editor: Xu Xu)
