American Well Case Analysis

Marketing I Assignment 2 14th August 2012 AMERICAN WELL: THE DOCTOR WILL E-SEE YOU NOW From: Group 1, Section B A Logesh (2012PGP001) Debraj Das (2012PGP101) Lopes Raoul Reginald (2012PGP187) Piyush Gulati (2012PGP253) Roshan Anand (2012PGP316) AMERICAN WELL: THE DOCTOR WILL E-SEE YOU NOW 1. Which of the new market opportunities do you see as the most promising? Various market opportunities available for American Well are 😕 Hospitals – Installing an online case kiosk in emergency room will allow patients to consult physicians’ online while waiting to be seen.Moreover, the physicians would already have preliminary information about the ailment of the patient, improving the hospital’s overall efficiency. It would also help the hospitals situated far-distance to improve their customer base as it improve them build relationships. ? Retail Clinics – Most of the retail clinic in US are walk-in and do not have any waiting period. Moreover, there are alrea dy established Retail clinics which would make difficult for any new entrant in the market. ? Pharmacy – By allowing pharmacists to use American Well platform, it would allow the patients to clarify all their queries.It would also save the customers from getting embarrassed to ask questions in front of other customers. ? International expansion – Expanding to new markets would require extensive changes to American Well organizational structure depending on the government regulations and online transfers of health information. Also, Ido and Roy have had limited or no experience of doing business outside US. So, these decisions could be delayed for the time being. Looking into the advantages and disadvantages of various opportunities listed above, we feel that targeting the hospitals would be most promising. 2.Using an appropriate method outlined in the reading, marketing analysis toolkit, Identify what is the value of online care to various stakeholders. How does this i nfluence the company in choosing an appropriate positioning? Using 5Cs analysis: Customer Insurance company: Health insurance companies in online care can save around 3. 36 $ per patient per month which amounts to 9. 3% difference on starting cost estimate of $36. 06. Health insurance offering online care can gain more by opening their physician network to non members. By offering a novel, affordable care services insurance company could build goodwill with their members.Patients: Patients need affordable, convenient access to quality care in terms of place and time of service. Service that eliminates geographical restrictions and linking excess supply is needed. A patient can log on to system, indicate what type of doctor she would like to consult and get the choice of currently available doctors and can consult. There is no appointment, no specific place or time but service can be delivered from any place at any time. This paves the way for treating medical conditions early becaus e of immediacy of receiving professional medical help.For patients this will lead to better health outcomes and for insurance company it will mean less cost. Context Political environment: In 2009, the healthcare environment in US was volatile owing to the recession and the commitment towards health care reforms shown by President Obama. It looked like that Obama would become the first to go ahead with the plans in decades but no decision had been taken for the first 11 months he was in office. Therefore a lot of insurance companies had gone into spending freezes and it remained unclear.HIPAA – Users of the new IT healthcare systems remained wary about HIPAA compliance and malpractice risk, therefore were more stringent of their requirements from IT service providers. Economic environment: 14% of Americans did not see the doctor due to cost concerns 17% paid out of pocket because of no health insurance schemes Socio Cultural environment: Patients sometimes hesitate to reveal embarrassing diseases or diseases with stigma attached to them. Technological environment: Internet has now become central to a lot of things people do People now prefer (74%) to get response from doctors over ails Company The entrepreneurial roots and previous experience of the Schoenberg brothers in providing healthcare related IT products gave them an advantage in terms handling the product. As far as the Online Care product is concerned, they had the first mover advantage which would give them immense value as far as selling the product in the market goes. Collaborators and Complementers Various complementary parties stand to benefit as a result of the online health care system. Doctors: Doctors also stood to gain vastly by the adoption of this system by insurance companies.They could earn more due to regular demand, avoid costs such as hiring of employees and leasing of office space and equipment. It could also benefit doctors who have retired from regular practice and those in regions where demand of healthcare services is very low. Hospitals and Health Clinics: These places could also be benefitted, because demand of a particular health service can be easily conveyed beforehand by the insurance companies, and accordingly doctors, patients and other medical practitioners can be scheduled to interact.It also includes more efficient use of the hospitals resources. Employers of Medium/Large enterprises: Employers could form tie-ups with insurance companies, and offer the benefit of online healthcare to its employees. The benefits of which include: – Higher employee retention due to satisfaction and ease of health care – Higher employee productivity due to reduction of illness. – Ease of access, through kiosks which can be installed at the workplace itself Competitors A number of companies were involved in health-related electronic exchanges in US with the objective of improving patient care.These companies provided interaction directly between the physicians and patients, for example- Medfusion’s Virtual Office Suite, a secure HIPAAcompliant web-based platform; Cisco’s TelePresence, which enabled live video conferencing. These companies focused their activities only between the patients and the physicians and didn’t involve Health insurance companies. However in 2009, Cisco was creating a nationwide network in collaboration with a large U. S health insurer to increase their reach in the market. The offline mode of involving in patient care have players like Nurse Practitioners, MinuteClinic, RediClinic etc. hich have their own retail- based clinics in areas where there are PCP shortages, overburdened emergency rooms or patients wanting less expensive treatments. The above analysis helps the company position the product in the following way: By targeting insurance companies, the company stands to benefit the most. Insurance companies stood to gain maximum returns out of the system, due to the f ollowing reasons: Reducing their annual expenditure of $2 trillion on health insurance services considerably, by reducing costs. A 2009 analysis reported that Online Care could save insurers $3. 6 per patient per month (Exhibit 9), which is quite a considerable cost. Reducing complications of scheduling appointments, payments, and coordination between hospitals and patients. Opening doors to people who have not taken the insurance scheme, but are willing to pay a premium Also developing a new customer base, with access to all health records, potential illnesses etc. – Also, besides insurance companies, as shown in the 5C analysis above, doctors, employers, patients and hospitals could also benefit greatly. Hence, the value provided to all these entities by use of American Well is significant. 3.What is the best course of action? As of now, only a handful of Health Insurance companies and employers have started using American Well’s platform. So, instead of developing n ew products or targeting new markets, American Well should concentrate on expanding its business using the current platform throughout US. They should try and collaborate with more number of health insurance companies and employers in US to use their platform. So by focusing their attention on these activities at present, American Well will take a significant step towards reaching their ultimate goal of becoming the market leader in Online Care.