With the help of blockchain technology, insurtech startup MediConCen's app connects doctors, insurers and insured clients to facilitate medical consultation and claims management
Anyone who has ever tried to make a medical claim can probably attest to the frustrations often involved in the tedious administrative processes when dealing with traditional insurance companies.
William Yeung and his insurtech company MediConCen are changing that.
“Insurance is a great creation that helps people when they are most in need, but the user experience is often a hassle,” says Yeung. “When you are sick, it’s a nasty thing to deal with and you cannot make a ‘claim’ without your agent’s help. I’ve even heard people say insurance is cheating people due to the pain and hassle of getting back the money they are covered for. That’s sad for an industry that does good.”
MediConCen seeks to address these systemic flaws and help remedy such perceptions with the help of blockchain technology.
“I first heard about blockchain soon after it was invented, and I found this new way to maintain trust of a system among all participants fascinating,” says Yeung. “There are many innovations out there, but this kind of moonshot breakthrough is rare. And though blockchain was talked about in the insurance companies I worked for, I realised no one really knew how to apply it within the industry.”
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Yeung established MediConCen in 2018 to connect doctors, insurers and insured clients through an all-in-one app that facilitates medical consultation and claims management, thus making the whole experience seamless and automatic for clients. The company currently works with a roster of clients including insurance companies, doctors, medical clinics, physiotherapy centres, dental clinics and traditional Chinese medical clinics across Hong Kong.
Transactions on the MediConCen app are cryptographically signed on the Hyperledger blockchain with a verified identity. This enables a host of benefits to medical providers, insurers and insured clients alike, including easy sign-up for clinics, eliminating the hassle of time-consuming and costly paperwork, and, perhaps most importantly, the speedy settlement of claims. The system can also instantly verify the insured client’s eligibility within a secure environment, thereby eliminating the possibility of fraudulent transactions.
“I asked myself if there is a solution to the [claims] issue and I thought how sweet it would be if all medical providers and insurers could work together in a single trusted system and have everything taken care of in the back-end,” says Yeung. “It would be a world without the word ‘claim’ in the dictionary, and everyone can use their insurance without hassle or requiring the help of others, just like how you use your gym membership.”
The key here, he says, is that blockchain resolves the issue of trust by ensuring that any logic and data written into the system cannot be altered without mutual consent.
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