Essential Features to Build the Best Health Insurance App

7 min read May 16, 2020

With the digitalization of health care, mobile apps have been transformed and leveraged by the health insurance sector. Today, it is indispensable for an insurance company to have a mobile application for meeting the expectations of tech-savvy millennials and competing with their rivals in the digital landscape. Using the web or mobile healthcare app makes the healthcare facilities readily accessible and saves precious time for the medical fraternity, especially doctors and patients. Health Insurance apps are a great tool to harness collective insights which help in better decision-making. It also provides real-time output to boost business efficiency and profit.  

Why make a Healthcare Insurance App? 

With the proliferation of the aging population in the U.S., the healthcare industry revenue is expected to rise. With the outbreak of the pandemic, the majority of healthcare companies are ready to cover the expenditure related to the testing and treatment of COVID-19. An influx of patients with COVID-19 symptoms will rise in the coming days, and it will eventually lead to an increase in the expenses related to medical insurance apps benefits. It will impact the profit margins for the health insurance companies.  

According to McKinsey, “The private health insurance market, already worth $1.6 trillion, is expected to double its revenues by 2025.” The top players in the market like QuickCard, WellPoint Inc, United Health Group, DKV, Kaiser Permanente, etc. believe that the key applications and end-users of the Global Health Insurance Market include disease insurance, medical insurance, and income protection insurance. The major regions that will see immense growth in the future are the US, Canada, EU, China, India, and SE Asia. 

Despite revenue growth, the increase in medical costs and new legislation mandates for minimum medical loss ratios are leading to more pressure on industry profit. In 2018, over 318,000 mobile healthcare applications were available for patients, as reported by Liquid-State, with around 200 new healthcare apps being developed every day. This is a startling figure and is a testimony to the fact that there has been a significant rise after the coronavirus pandemic.  

There are a few ambiguous points that arise in the mind of most people. Let’s delve deeper into them: 

What are Healthcare apps?  

Health is the core part of our survival. The pandemic has somewhere accelerated digital innovation in the Healthcare industry.  Healthcare apps are simple application programs that offer health-related services initiated by the business. These applications are proved to be a great movement towards healthcare.  

What are the Benefits of Healthcare Apps?

Using FAQs, the mobile app enables the detection and assessment of illness symptoms. The application is the best medium for keeping track of one's health and alerting medical experts quickly. Built-in or plug-in sensors, devices, and participant-based reporting can all be used for monitoring. Remote illness symptom monitoring looks to be a highly helpful and promising component of the healthcare system, particularly when considering its benefits in the treatment of at-risk populations or patients with life-threatening diseases that require constant monitoring.  

To increase their business profit, medical and health insurance companies need to create robust, secured, intuitive, and user-friendly apps to attract maximum clients and do a profitable business. Generally, people using the best insurance app, especially during the pandemic, are impatient and want instant response and assistance regarding their query regarding an insurance notification. Major Health Insurance companies like UnitedHealth Group, Anthem, Humana Group, Aetna, etc., benefit from using a Health Insurance app, starting from Legacy Modernization of Healthcare Management System to advanced health features for future-ready solutions.

Challenges faced by the Health Insurance Sector  

Health Insurance is a lucrative sector, but some challenges are faced byprivate insurers who are still following the traditional approach to deal with their clients. People are adopting digital platforms for all their day-to-day activities and prefer opting for smart and quick solutions for their health-related needs as well. Today, patients are desperate to switch to health insurance apps as all the information, from doctors to the best insurance plan, etc., everything is just a click away. Some of the challenges faced by the Health Insurance app are as follows:

  • Excessive use of paper  
  • Long queues for appointment  
  • Wastage of time to avail the policy  
  • Hard to select the best suitable policy  
  • Disorganized health care system  
  • Difficult to find the best Doctor  

So, when you are planning to switch your services to the best health insurance apps, you must provide a solution to all the above challenges to make the end-users steer through easily with a few taps. The aim of the developer should be to create an intuitive, secured, feature-rich, and user-friendly app that will benefit the insurer by attracting maximum loyal clients for achieving business benefits.  

Features of Health Insurance App  

To gain a competitive edge over your business rivals, switching from the traditional methods to the digital platform is essential to woo your patients. Here is a list of essential features your health insurance app must have to make it the most preferred app for your patients and recommended by doctors as well.

Let’s check out the benefits of insurance apps for patients & companies serving the healthcare sector: 

1. Offer Suitable Plans  

To initiate your clients' journey, the first step is to offer them various good options so that they can choose the best suitable plan according to their needs. A well-designed app allows users to make their choice easily. For example, providing a short questionnaire or form to the users to gather their basic information can be used to offer the most suitable plan according to their needs.  

2. Purchasing or Renewing Policies  

Everyone wants to make the best decision, and your app should act as a platform for the same. The real benefit of the health insurance app is when users can identify and purchase their perfect policy. At times, people need to purchase a policy at another qualifying life event, like a family member's birth or death. The traditional approach to buy or renew an insurance policy has always been time-consuming and challenging. A good app acts as an aid to decide their most-suited plan in a short period.  

3. Easy Payment Options  

At times, clients forget to make their monthly or annual payments and may end up being paying heavy dues later. One of the main advantages of using the digital app is to offer automated payment options to clients so that neither the client nor the insurer has to face any penalties due to delayed payments. A secure payment gateway can be integrated into the app for automatic payment from the client to the health insurance app provider, monthly or annually, as per requirement. This eliminates the fear of losing coverage on the insurance policy, as there will be no delay in making payments. By integrating with a payment gateway, patients can also conveniently pay the Doctor's bills immediately after their appointment.  

4. Finding the best Doctors  

Users can get a complete list of specialist doctors so that they can choose them according to their illness. Different filters can be added to help the users look for doctors in a particular area, a particular illness, or simply search for doctors by their name. Also, at times, an app can provide a team of concierges who analyze the symptoms and direct the patients to the specialists accordingly.  

5. Booking an Appointment  

This feature plays a key role in attracting many users to your health insurance app, as they can visit the doctors according to their scheduled appointment and save ample time waiting in queues. A user-friendly calendar with easy navigation can help users to book their appointment based on the availability of dates and time slots.  

6. Search for Drugs  

Health Insurance companies can tie up with pharmacies so that patients can search for the nearby pharmacy where their prescribed medicine is available. Medicine delivery at the doorstep can also be provided to the clients.  

7. Symptom Checker  

This feature has been widely used in medical apps, but now, it has become crucial with coronavirus outbreaks. A simple questionnaire or form can enquire about the patient's health, and based on that, they can be directed to the specialist Doctor. It will also help in pre-diagnosis and save the time of doctors and the patient at the time of appointment.  

8. Document Access  

The Health Insurance app acts as a reservoir of all the essential health documents related to the insurance policy and their lab reports. Instead of looking out for papers in the cupboards, the user can easily fetch reports with a few taps on their phone. Users, if required, can share reports with their doctors through their phones without visiting them personally. The app should have strong encryption so that the data is completely secured.  

9. Reminders  

At times, patients forget their follow-up visits. By implementing push notifications, the app can remind them of their next visit to the Doctor. Also, important dates of claims processing, insurance expiration dates, and other important events are shared with the users through timed push notifications.  

10. FAQs  

At times, people who are using Health Insurance for the first time may have some doubts. The frequently Asked Questions section allows users to clear their thoughts and make decisions wisely by knowing more about different scenarios and insurance policies.  

11. Support Team  

Patients and users purchasing or renewing health insurance policies should be able to talk to the Support team so that they can decide wisely before making any investment. The members of the support team should be patient listeners and qualified to understand and guide them in the best way.  

The success of Healthcare Software built by Seasia  

1. Health Care Management System  

It gets you the real-time patient requirements on a multi-layer single platform.  

Seasia provides strong, scalable, secure, and engaging healthcare apps that use artificial intelligence, Cloud, and IoT technologies to mitigate health risks through enhanced predictions and interpretation of records. We have produced successful creative solutions throughout the world with over two decades of experience and expertise in AI/ML, Blockchain, IoT, Voice-enabled Solutions, and alliances with major players in the Healthcare industry.  

2. Childcare Management System  

The U.S. Government needed a child care management system that was reliable, scalable, and secure. Seasia came up with the CCMS, which is a robust and stunning collection of application modules developed to automate government activities and provide rapid access to U.S. residents. On a single platform, Seasia's Child Care Management System helps streamline everyday administrative chores and parent communication. This software is extremely dependable since there is no downtime during business hours, and the information is always up to date. Its performance is best-in-class, demonstrating the system's efficiency.  

3. Dr. First

Dr. First is one of the most well-known names in the healthcare mobile app market, with a reputation for developing cutting-edge software for physicians and healthcare practitioners. Their products have enabled medical and dental offices, hospitals, pharmacies, and EMR/HER/HIS systems with integrated technologies, stand-alone solutions, and consulting services. They give real-time access to the patient's data, allowing both parties to communicate and collaborate more effectively, resulting in improved health results.  In 2017, they were ranked first in the category of Medication Management Solution.  

To Sum Up 

The features that we mentioned earlier of the Health Insurance App are essential to attract and build strong, long-lasting relationships with clients. The Health Insurance App development company should also focus on the medical regulatory guidelines so that they can be used for both public and private insurance. The sudden emergence of the pandemic COVID-19 has compelled people to opt for the best Health Insurance policies. It is sure that by creating a robust, secured, user-friendly Health Insurance App, companies can make lucrative business gains in the coming years.  

Shivani Mehta

Shivani is a proficient content marketer who has a keen interest in understanding and sharing how technology is changing the world around us. She worked with numerous publication before switching to blogging for digital platforms. She is also a contributor to many online publication houses. She is fond of reading and sharing her views on social, political, and environmental issues. In her time off, she loves to play with her kids, listen to good music, and go for long drives.