Insurer-Provider Hybrid Gaining Popularity among Millennials
Looking for health insurance? A new doctor? How about a yoga session or cooking class? A growing insurer-provider-healthy lifestyle hybrid is gaining popularity—most notably among millennials, who are soon to be the largest consumers of healthcare in America.
Called Zoom Health, the company is a combination medical provider and health insurer that offers its patients a wide variety of services on demand. Now ten years old, Zoom started out as a clinic in Portland, Oregon, and has since expanded to thirty locations across the Pacific Northwest and even offers its own insurance on the Oregon Health Exchange.
Touted as everything from “the future of healthcare” and “the Kaiser Permanente for the 21st Century” by Forbes, the hybrid concept is adding competition and innovation to the healthcare industry.
In launching their health plan (ZOOM+ Performance Health Insurance) last year, the company summed itself and its role in the industry succinctly:
“We started ZoomCare with the promise to deliver Twice the Care, at Half the Price, and Ten Times the Delight. Our On-Demand clinics made healthcare more accessible and less expensive, but they’re only part of the solution. The inherent friction in the existing system between provider, payer (insurance), and patient (that’s you!) made it impossible to deliver on our promise.”
Created by a pair of doctors—Dave Sanders and Albert DiPiero—the company has expanded to offer services that include dental care, mental health services, chronic disease management and access to specialists. In addition, a clinic treats emergencies, and a performance studio handling fitness services such as yoga and workouts; cooking classes and therapy are also available.
Shorter wait times, lower premiums, and more are all created through Zoom’s business model, according to a recent Benefits Pro article on the company. According to a Money article, Zoom is designed for an imaginary patient named Sarah, who is in her early thirties and wants to get her health care the same way she gets other services in her life – quickly and efficiently.
Following in the footsteps of Kaiser Permanente by acting as provider and insurer, Zoom operates much differently—acting as a hybrid rather than a closed system, treating not only Zoom insurance members but people with other health plans and self-paying patients as well. People covered by Zoom insurance can get care at Zoom medical facilities or with Zoom partners, including Oregon Health & Sciences University hospitals.
Further, Zoom offers more transparency to the patients by sharing in advance how much each service would cost. Additionally, Zoom lowers the cost of services by not accepting Medicare or Medicaid patients, not promoting additional, costly tests and procedures, stripping out a lot of the paperwork, and cherry picking the least costly patients and leaving other medical groups and hospitals to deal with medically needier people.
As Zoom looks to progress, however, there will be challenges from regulators and policymakers. It did however successfully lobby for laws in Oregon allowing nurse practitioners to dispense medication and insurers to reimburse for more telemedicine.
Could this become a trend for other innovators? The idea is there: transparent, truly customer-focused care at a lower cost and higher speed. What challenges will Zoom and other companies face? We look forward to keeping you up to date with any developments.
