India has always made leaps in technology. For example, we made the leap from no internet to her 4G mobile. Moved from a poor payment network to his in-house developed world class UPI and digital payments. Similarly, healthcare will leap from poor primary and secondary healthcare systems to best-in-class virtual care, and the use of wearables, big data and AI will transform the healthcare sector. Customers are highly engaged with health apps and this trend is growing in India.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated digital disruption as consumer demand for digitized services surged. Digital adoption during COVID has improved with apps such as the Arogya Setu and Cowin App set up for immunization appointments and certificates, unlike in developed countries where paper and manual procedures were the norm.

The pandemic has also changed the course of healthcare towards a more technology-driven approach. People in good health survived COVID. The pandemic has clearly taught us the importance of telemedicine and that health is as important as wealth.

Hefty hospital bills during COVID have made people understand the importance of health insurance. This makes health insurance more important today than ever before. The realization of technology has greatly simplified the complexity of communication and interaction between various stakeholders: patients, providers, payers (insurers), and governments (central and state).

This growth in insurance demand is undoubtedly due to new age insurance players transforming the industry. These companies are expanding access to insurance by adding simplicity, transparency and easy-to-use channels. This has led entire industries to adapt to changing times using disruptive technologies to stay competitive. As the digitization of insurance extends to every process within the system: policy pricing, claims management, customer service and even risk analysis, technology is disrupting many critical functions.

There are several key technologies that insurers use to enable them to provide best-in-class service to their customers.

Big data analytics for outcome-based insurance: For example, big data is currently one of the most valuable tools used by all insurance companies. Technologies that make data and analytics available to insurers can help insurers get to know their customers better. This allows for more accurate pricing and underwriting, as well as better identification of fraudulent claims. Many insurers are partnering with preventive health and wearables companies to track data. By enabling and collecting the right data from IoT such as activity trackers (wearables), we can better understand consumer needs and provide customized advice, coverage, and customized pricing.

This shift shows that insurers now see consumers as individuals rather than customer segments. Usage-based insurance policies, for example, use customer data to bill users according to their specific needs and behaviors, ensuring that consumers pay their own bills. Based on a person’s health status, insurers can offer all users differentiated, dynamic pricing and plans that can be further customized based on improved health status. Big data is enabling health insurers to (i) store vast amounts of data, (ii) expedite customer response, (iii) maximize customer updates, and (iv) remotely access data. (v) historical and real-time access; data.

Using AI for better customer service and billing:

AI, machine learning and robotic process automation are among the most disruptive technologies in the insurance industry. With the previous traditional model of claims processing, insurers found it difficult to manage and speed up the processing of the sheer volume of claims each day. In billing data, it is difficult to identify specific patterns that require further human inspection. However, with artificial intelligence, it only takes minutes and clever programming to identify specific random or large-scale billing patterns. And all this without significantly increasing operational costs or spending an excessive amount of time.

Mobility Solutions for Support Services:

By combining mobility issues with health insurance services, insurers can offer convenient and easily accessible services to consumers via customer-facing insurance apps. In addition, the highly mobile-enabled solution enables insurers, policyholders, and potential consumers to (i) make and change claims, (ii) receive online consultation anytime, anywhere, and (iii). (iv) claim status check; (iv) automation of claims process; (v) real-time delivery of prescription information to pharmacies.

The Metaverse will also boost health insurance in the future. It’s not unrealistic to think that healthcare companies will soon be challenged to create new business models for patient health insurance, reimbursement, and prescriptions in this new virtual world. Monitoring patient activity in the metaverse means that factors such as compliance and behavior can be tracked more easily, further helping to customize health insurance plans for consumers. Metaverse is poised to benefit consumers across a range of healthcare requirements, including insurance. Technologies such as the adoption of blockchain infrastructure and sophisticated software tools for data analysis can go a long way in helping insurers to minimize unnecessary costs. Helps improve effectiveness and provides smoother and faster service to customers.

This disruption caused by technology in the health insurance space is only getting better. Today it’s slow and steady, but companies have already started and implemented many of these processes.

end of article