How Air Doctor is Improving Healthcare for Travelers and Creating Efficiencies for Insurers
By Veronica Gabriele, Senior Associate
It is not uncommon to hear stories from friends and family that while traveling they fell ill and needed to get medical attention. Travelers are typically unfamiliar with local health systems and do not have easy access to doctors. More often than not they end up with two choices: visit the emergency room, which results in high cost of care, or wait it out and get care back home where there is a more familiar healthcare system. No one should be in a situation where they put their health at risk because accessing care is difficult. Recognizing the difficulty in finding quality health care while away from home, Air-Doctor (AD) has simplified the process of finding a general practitioner or specialist while traveling.
The travel insurance market size today is $7.6B. Each year over 900M people travel — but less than a quarter are insured. Of these 280M insured travelers get sick and 42M see a doctor. Insurance companies have incredibly low engagement rates, often as a result of tedious claims processes and opaque pricing. AD streamlines the search, scheduling, and payment of care abroad, making it a game changer for travelers.
AD was founded by Jenny Cohen Derfler (CEO), Efrat Sagi-Ofir (CRO), Yam Derfler (Co-Founder), and Yegor Kurbachev (VP R&D), to give travelers an intuitive and accessible platform to find the right doctor for their needs. When customers use the AD app they see their policy information appear along with any additional beneficiary’s name under the account. The AD app is similar to a ridesharing app’s interface and allows travelers to search and book an appointment either in-person or virtually globally. Consumers have access to at least five main areas of care including GP, pediatrics, dental, orthopedic, and gynecology, and can filter practitioners based on location, language spoken, gender, and specialty. All doctors on the app are fully vetted by AD and include practitioner reviews and bios. This gives consumers an added layer of trust. While in-person visits can be confirmed within a three-day window, telehealth visits are available 24/7. The platform automatically imports the traveler’s information, streamlines payments in app if necessary (in the case of a deductible), and eliminates the need to submit a claim if the customer’s travel insurance provider is partnered with AD. In addition, because the doctors are local, practitioners have the ability to prescribe medication which is often a pain point.
For doctors, the Air-Doctor platform offers a free platform to gain wider exposure to a network of patients and streamlines payments.
Air-Doctor also improves operational efficiency for insurance partners. ERGO/ERV, a subsidiary of Munich Re, is a great example of a successful integration between AD and an insurance company. The AD platform is a modular system that gives insurance companies full steering flexibility. The insurance company can integrate their own doctor network or can decide any combination of limitations (ex. excluding dental visits). Insurers can limit the amount of visits per customer or which cases should move to an assistance provider (usually for more complex cases). By giving consumers access to a curated network of doctors, travelers are less likely to seek care at a high-cost hospital, but get medical attention in lower-cost community care facilities — ultimately cutting costs for insurance companies. Overall, for the insurer, Air-Doctor increases customer satisfaction, improves engagement, reduces claims, all while providing full steering capability.
At a moment when travel is headed back to normal, Air Doctor provides a sense of comfort for travelers by ensuring their healthcare needs will be covered. We are excited about our journey ahead with the Air Doctor team and the efficiencies they can bring to patients, doctors, and insurers alike.
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Veronica Gabriele is an InsurTech and cyber investor at Munich Re Ventures. If you’d like to connect please reach out to veronica@munichre.com or connect on LinkedIn here.
