According to a study by the open innovation platform Distrito, there are more than a thousand health techs, health startups operating in Brazil. The initiatives emerged a few years ago in order to fill gaps left by the public system and serve Brazilian companies, which have been feeling the impact of readjustments in health plans.
In 2022, there was a record average readjustment: the latest official data from the ANS (National Supplementary Health Agency), comparing the 3rd quarter of 2021 with the 3rd quarter of 2022, point to an increase in claims from 85.8% to 89, 3% – an actual increase of 4%.
Felipe Crusius, COO of Clude Saúde explains that claims ratio is the term used to designate the percentage of everything a company charges that is used exclusively for assistance activities. That is, appointments, surgeries, exams, hospitalizations and chemotherapy, among others.
“In addition to this cost, operators have the administrative cost of people who review their authorizations, who attend a SAC (Customer Service) and taxes, as well as commercial costs”. He points out that the average of operators begins to suffer losses when this number exceeds 70%.
From that point on, the readjustments begin to stay above inflation for the period. “This makes room for companies with in-depth knowledge of the system to use the gaps in the health system to promote cheaper and more efficient products for companies”, he says, emphasizing that this is precisely what characterizes the B2B market (Business to Business, expression in English used to define companies that offer products and services to other companies).
According to Mercado & Consumo and the Business-to-business Online index, measured by E-Consulting, the segment moved an estimated R$2.4 trillion in the country in 2019, pre-pandemic. Companies are still discovering this alternative [soluções oferecidas por health techs]but we have indications that 2023 will be the year when the most modern solutions will be accepted and implemented on a large scale”.
How does the commercial relationship between companies and health techs work?
Crusius says that, most of the time, the service contractor is an HR (Human Resources) manager or the owner of a small business. The final consumers who come into contact with these solutions are the company’s employees and their families.
He explains that the company buys the service for its employees as a benefit. And that the first challenge is to establish, at the same time, “a clear relationship with a contractor – who is literate in the subject of benefits – and a humanized proximity with the end user”, who wins the solution without having chosen it directly.
“As everything indicates, the solutions that despised human contact did not achieve an effective way of relating to the consumer”, he says. “Health systems have a lot to take advantage of technological means, especially in the control of quality of care and standardization of care, but it is in human proximity that the success of the new tools is revealed”, he completes.
In the view of Clude Saúde’s COO, innovation involves technological inclusion in care activities, but human contact, empathy, the ability to understand the “pain” of others will never be replaced, because they must be genuine and sincere, not reactive and scheduled.
“Admitting that all interfaces have their restrictions, that there is no absolute truth and that we are, despite being advanced, in a phase of understanding how technological solutions are included in the health scenario, are essential points for the change of times that we will experience in the sector”, he says.
“Substitute products” gain prominence in the market
According to Crusius, all market expansion, especially in the case of the so-called “substitute products”, is accompanied by opportunities for business and profits. “This attracts the most diverse managers and executives for the opportunity to earn. A lot of people who don’t know how this market works decided to undertake”.
For the businessman, the solidity of technological solutions in health tends to come from innovative managers, from health professionals with a “thirst” for innovation, who know how to differentiate what is possible and advantageous from what is impossible and is just a daydream.
“This bombardment of information with new companies opening, closing, doing good or foolish things confuses contractors”, he says. “When in doubt, they should opt for health techs that have leaders with demonstrated capacity in managing the health area so as not to be at a disadvantage”.
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