Blue Cross, per the SCMP:
On Tuesday, Blue Cross (Asia-Pacific) Insurance said it has become the first insurer in the city to launch a blockchain-backed solution to speed up medical insurance claims and prevent fraud, adding that the distributed ledger technology will also help the company cut costs.
Rivals Prudential, HSBC Life and Bowtie Insurance have started selling insurance products and processing insurance claims online in the past year, but they are yet to adopt blockchain to process them.
With blockchain, Blue Cross can now process claims faster than it ever could. The tech also removes the risk of fraud, and it slashes costs for the company, with Blue Cross Managing Director Patrick Wan saying that it “eliminates the need to reconcile medical claim data across various parties.”
And it seems that the benefits aren’t Blue Cross’ alone: William Yeung, co-founder of blockchain-based medical network MediConCen, told the SCMP that claimants and clinics in Blue Cross’ network can end up saving a lot of time with the new service. He added that the network’s efficiency and convenience could attract more “doctors, Chinese medicine practitioners and chiropractors who do not employ a lot of support staff for administrative work” to Blue Cross.
At any rate, the company’s move appears to be quite timely: the Hong Kong government – armed with tax deductions up to HKD8,000 – has been pushing individuals to buy more private health insurance.
Photo: Alan Lam