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Richard Norris, general manager for business and specialist products at Bupa spoke with Health & Protection about the increasing role of digital healthcare and the transformation it is bringing to the health insurance market.
As part of this he reveals the extraordinary interest in remote GPs and the significant benefits of engaging people early through digital healthcare services.
What trends are you seeing in terms of digital healthcare in the market?
First is digital GP use, which is probably the cornerstone and is up more than 500% since 2020, which is a huge increase.
We had just short of 750,000 virtual GP appointments last year and we expect this to pass 1m this year, which shows there is a really big demand for access to a GP.
I’ve been in the market for 23 years and back then we didn’t even cover GPs and certainly people wouldn’t have been rushing to engage with a digital GP, they would have wanted to go and see someone.
That has been a really big change accelerated by Covid and I can’t see that disappearing.
It gets people to diagnosis and treatment much quicker and GPs can see many more people digitally than they can face-to-face – so it’s good for everybody.
Do you see this virtual GP growth continuing or will it plateau?
For the customers we have today, we expect demand will continue at current levels or thereabouts.
However, we’re seeing more demand for whole of workforce health services from corporate customers, with digital GP at the heart – which is why we’ve launched Bupa Well+.
Employers are engaging with us to say: ‘Can you give us something that supports our employees to get access to healthcare, get a diagnosis and get into the system digitally?’
That’s where I see the growth area for digital GP; we’re having conversations with some very big corporates about covering their whole workforce in that regard.
Moving away from a pure employee benefit into a genuine tool to support everyone’s health and wellbeing and keep them in the workplace will be another growth area.
Instead of having to wait to get their own GP referral letter, employees can get an appointment through our Bupa Touch app within 24 hours, get their worry sorted out and move on. This means we can better manage their onward treatment and also helps to improve cost efficiency.
Digital enables us to attract people into the process sooner plus help them access the best possible pathway in the most convenient way possible and that makes the biggest difference, if you can really engage people in this and get them using it, it is better for everyone.
What about digital care for mental health?
Digital is increasingly becoming the standard for mental health and we are investing heavily to recruit counsellors and therapists for our services, as we see increased demand from customers and a preference from clinicians to work on remote services.
There are also some great businesses out there bring innovation to mental health like Just Ask A Question (JAAQ) who we’ve recently partnered with to increase access to expert-led health advice online.
Employers are looking for propositions to support employees’ wellbeing across many different generations for the first time.
When it comes to supporting younger people especially, a big challenge is getting them to engage with and use workplace benefits that are available to them. Early intervention is so important with mental health, but there’s still not many 35-year-olds who want to ring someone and talk about their struggles. We know that getting help early often leads to improved outcomes, which is the most important thing.
That’s where digital plays well because starting with content and early intervention before you see a therapist has traditionally been the missing piece.
Hopefully this means the employee can get back into the workplace quicker, while also reducing costs by around 30% as less intensive treatment is needed.
How has the demand on health insurance providers changed?
The market is growing. I’ve been in the sector for a long time and it’s generally been flat or marginal growth until the last three years.
The last two years were our biggest growth ever, and this year we’re on track to beat that.
The trends we’re seeing are employers working hard to give all of their employees a healthcare solution. Now that might be PMI, it might be a cash plan or it might be digital healthcare services like Bupa Well+.
The recruitment market is pretty tight, particularly in digital and technology and a key benefit that people want to offer now is healthcare.
We’re also trying to think about how the employee wants to engage with us in general.
We’re trying to have lots of different routes for people so they can engage as early as possible and get a better healthcare outcome.
How has Bupa responded to the demand?
We’ve done well. We have had to respond to additional demand, but we’ve managed to grow our customer service teams as well as our digital agenda.
It’s about giving customers those opportunities to engage with you, in lots of different ways to get the right outcome for them.
I’m really proud of our service and how we’ve managed to keep pace with that level of growth which we haven’t had to do before.
Healthcare practitioners have also kept pace with increased demand pretty well, but there are always pinch points on capacity with consultants. That’ll be the same for the NHS as it would be for us.
The availability of consulting in some niche areas is more challenging than others, it’s something we track and where we see a challenge, we work hard with that.
We work with those very specific areas to try and bring more consultants online so they can treat our customers.
Are people using digital services primarily for diagnosis and treatment or for prevention and everyday wellbeing?
I’d say they are using it for diagnosis to start with and then around 40% of those people go through to secondary care.
Some areas resonate better than others, for example we’re getting good take-up on physiotherapy and dermatology, and where it makes logical sense customers are really engaging with it.
For musculoskeletal (MSK) health, a key part of that journey is around movement, so we offer digital services from exercises to physio-guided programmes to help customers address an issue.
Within Bupa Touch and Well+ we have wellbeing and exercise classes they can do virtually and we’ve had a huge uptake of that, thousands participating since launch in January.
We see that as a key role for us keeping people well and preventing them from getting sick in the first place.