The digital healthcare arena continues transforming healthcare delivery while broadening access for patients.
This, as health technology company and insurance platform Oscar Health told investors on Thursday’s (Feb. 9) fourth quarter 2022 earnings call that its membership numbers for the year rose to a record total of 1,151,483.
The push to over 1 million individuals served by the digital-first insurer represents a 93% year-over-year increase, up nearly double from the 598,200 members reported in the fourth quarter of the prior year.
“Customer engagements continued to be a competitive differentiator for us,” Oscar CEO and Co-Founder Mario Schlosser said to investors on the earnings call. Adding that, “fundamentally, Oscar is a growth company … focused on creating an ‘alternate reality’ health system.”
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Schlosser indicated that the insurer’s explosive member growth over the past year was primarily driven by new customers across Oscar’s individual and C+O small group books of business, as well as strong customer retention.
He cited Oscar’s net promoter score (NPS) of 45, compared to an industry average of just 3, while highlighting that the health tech company’s more digitally engaged members were 6 points more likely to stay with Oscar when up for renewal.
“We’ve added new channels to meet additional customers that have been historically harder to reach,” Schlosser told investors.
The CEO added that Oscar’s platform is uniquely positioned to address the healthcare industry’s key trends of consumerization, digitization and value-based care, and that it continues to invest in, and leverage, cloud-native core administrative solutions that enable innovative plan design and workflow automation.
“We are sending a lot more conversations to our automated voice AI systems on both the provider service and customer service sides and realizing efficiencies with those tools,” Schlosser said on the earnings call.
Oscar’s health platform already leverages the unique medical histories of its members to find them best-fit healthcare providers in real time.
Robust membership growth and strong retention drove an approximate doubling in premium earnings as well. Oscar executives indicated a continuing shift in focus from prioritizing growth to capturing profits.
2022 was the first full fiscal year since the company’s May 2021 initial public offering (IPO).
The digital shift has touched every sector of the economy, including — and especially — healthcare.
Digital-first patients are changing how healthcare is delivered, as well as transforming the decision funnel for how patients make up their minds about which health and wellness providers will get their business.
Those providers can even come from surprising places, as business in separate or adjacent industries see digital innovations as leveling or opening up the healthcare playing field.
PYMNTS has been closely tracking the still emergent yet already massive retailer healthcare movement that is seeing companies like Amazon, Walmart, CVS, and even Best Buy enter the healthcare marketplace and try, in their own ways, to make health delivery simpler for consumers.
Read more: ConnectedEconomy™: Omnichannel Healthcare Takes Center Stage
Oscar reported that more than 90% of people now use a digital health tool, and findings in the PYMNTS December report, “Healthcare In The Digital Age: Consumers See Unified Platforms As Key To Better Health,” confirm that approximately 4 in 5 consumers are interested in using a unified digital platform to manage information about their care and insurance benefits.
Underscoring that rising interest, as per PYMNTS’ data, is the fact that nearly half of consumers report experiencing problems accessing health insurance or healthcare services.
Common challenges include the difficulty of navigating between multiple channels to access either medical care or insurance benefits.
Consumers tell PYMNTS that what they want is a unified digital platform providing them with detailed information about their health insurance benefits, that lets them manage interactions with providers and health insurers, offers better control of their healthcare financial accounts, and is easily and securely accessible all in one digital location.
A separate PYMNTS report, “How Digital Has Changed The Consumer Healthcare Experience And Expectations,” shows that in the second half of 2022 alone, 118 million U.S. consumers logged onto digital health platforms to either check test results, schedule and check in for an appointment, or make payments.
Holistic platforms can and should ultimately help consumers manage all tasks related to their care and well-being, as well as facilitate coordination among insurers, financial services providers, care providers and pharmacies.
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