Camille Ang and her team at Hive Health are forging a path to ensure that Filipinos are well taken care of. The co-founder and CEO shares her plans to transform the landscape in a country where medical access is out of reach for many
In the Philippines where there is an 18.1 percent poverty incidence, reliable healthcare can be a saving grace for many families. However, health insurance can be costly, which is why Camille Ang and Jiawen Tang, two students at Harvard and Stanford respectively, co-founded Hive Health. A digital health platform that offers employees of small to medium businesses comprehensive healthcare plans, Hive Health aims to increase access to quality healthcare in the Philippines.
“The reality of how health shocks easily affect so many families due to the many gaps in healthcare accessibility and affordability, motivated us to write our thesis on finding solutions to solving the health risk financing gap in the Philippines,” shares Ang. “We realised there was an opportunity to apply an entrepreneurial approach to help solve this pressing problem and decided to start Hive Health in the hopes of transforming the healthcare landscape in the Philippines and beyond.”
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Since its establishment in 2021, Hive Health has found support and success not just through the media but among its own network of health providers as well. This year, Hive Health has announced its acquisition of Health Plan Philippines, Inc. (HPPI), one of the pioneering Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO) service providers in the country. This is how Ang and her team plan to leverage and further their mission of accessible healthcare.
What kind of technology implemented sets Hive Health apart?
Camille Ang (CA): “Beyond providing the standard set of benefits that traditional HMOs provide such as outpatient, inpatient, emergency and dental care, Hive Health provides exclusive benefits that other health plans offer to SMEs. These benefits include video teleconsultations with our team of in-house teleconsultation doctors, mental health coverage, medicine reimbursement and maternity coverage. We’ve built the Hive web application to be easy to use so that members can easily book teleconsultations, request LOAs, find the nearest accredited providers, view their plan details, file reimbursements and more.
“Our team of Hive Health doctors also use Hive Health’s in-house electronic medical records system alongside patients. This allows more accurate diagnoses and transparency for both patients and our doctors.”
What is your overall vision for Hive Health considering you’re a fairly young enterprise?
CA: “Our goal is to leverage technology and data to make quality healthcare more affordable and easier to use, especially for the underserved SME segment. With our acquisition of Health Plan Philippines, Inc. (HPPI), we’re looking forward to integrating HPPI’s nationwide provider network and institutional knowledge of 37 years with Hive Health’s core technology and data-driven capabilities.”
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