Innovators Take Page From Amazon, Netflix to Improve Healthcare Access and Reduce Cost of Care

Subscription offerings in telehealth are turning a fragmented and opaque healthcare sector into something that’s now being likened to Netflix, bringing the connected economy of convenience, digital experience and greater affordability to patients at increasing scale.

With the American Medical Association (AMA) saying use of telehealth services spiked by 3,000% in 2020, and currently hovering in the range of 8.8 million claims per month according to recent one study, video doctor visits are now key points of access — digital front doors to the connected economy — and memberships are widening that portal.

Alternately known as “concierge medicine,” medical membership has its privileges starting with cost management for patients and offering practices a new digital revenue stream.

As Becker’s Hospital Review recently reported, “Telemedicine companies are pushing subscriptions as a main driver to build on the growth they have maintained among consumers due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

A Silicon Valley startup getting attention along these lines is Alpha Medical, which offers two “all-inclusive” membership tiers priced from $120 per year to $40 for three months.

In a post on Medium, Alpha Founder and CEO Gloria Lau called medical membership services “table stakes” in pandemic-era care, calling its own membership offering “a full-service experience that includes preventative, mental, dermatological and urgent health care.”

The average subscriber now holds 3.7 different retail subscription plans, meaning “that there are now as many as 225 million active retail subscriptions in the U.S. at any given time — 99 million more than there were in Q1 2021,” according to The Subscription Commerce Conversion Index, a PYMNTS and sticky.io collaboration.

That bodes well for the growing number of medical membership plans becoming available.

Get the Index: The Subscription Commerce Conversion Index

Marketplace Models and More

Memberships models in healthcare are taking a variety of forms, following in the familiar pathways of medicine from doctor visits to lab work to treatment and prescriptions.

Taking the Amazon route, Sesame is an online marketplace where patient/consumers can find local practitioners from Urgent Care to various specialties, all on a membership basis.

David Goldhill, founder and CEO of Sesame, told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster, “The core interest [Sesame now sees] from the consumer, the patient, is that we now have a communications channel where we can understand what medical services you’re looking for and can alert you when there are specials or discounts or prices that work.”

Members don’t pay to join Sesame. They register with the service for basic benefits like $5 prescriptions, access to customer service, and use of a portal to book appointments, refill prescriptions, and access promotions. For $7 a month, Sesame Plus adds more benefits.

Sesame Plus users will save more than $200 annually, Goldhill said.

See also: Sesame Membership Model Brings ‘Radically Normal Healthcare’ to Millions of US Consumers

From Medication to Meditation

Be they called subscriptions, memberships or discount programs, companies offering these models share common goals of greater access, affordability with an eye on better outcomes.

Startup Ro hit unicorn status in 2020 and states on its website that it is “a membership-based service through which eligible Members can obtain limited medical care, including at-home phlebotomy services, medication at the discretion of the Member’s provider, and pharmacy services for a recurring monthly payment. The Program is not health insurance or a substitute for health insurance, does not meet any individual health insurance mandate under federal or state law, and cannot replace your in-person provider relationships.”

Ro CEO Zachariah Reitano told CNBC that he envisions the company as becoming the “Shopify of health care.” As CNBC wrote, “While some onlookers think of Ro as health care packaged to millennials, the average age of a Ro customer is now 46 years old, notes Reitano. Most of the users are male, given that Ro started off focusing on men’s health, but the company is anticipating that the ratio between men and women will even out in the coming years.”

Players like GoodRx are also in on the action. Per the company’s website, “GoodRx Gold is a drug savings program where you pay a membership fee to join. Just like GoodRx, GoodRx Gold gives you access to drugs at discounted prices at popular pharmacies in your area.”

As PYMNTS reported, GoodRx said subscription revenue was up 111% year-over-year to $16.2 million in Q3, “driven by a 68% increase in the number of subscription plans across GoodRx Gold and Kroger Savings Club, as well as a favorable change in subscription plan mix.”

The membership trend is extending to mental health as well, with counselling telehealth platform Cerebral offering an $85 per month subscription plan that includes video/phone appointments, medication delivery, as well as “mindfulness, stress management, and other behavioral therapy resources to help you feel better faster,” the company said.

See also: Acquisitions, Product Launches and Partnerships a Prescription for Growth at GoodRx