Jesús Hernández, a Mexican entrepreneur with extensive experience in the technology and health sectors, decided to found WeeCompany in 2016 with the purpose of transforming the health sector and making the use of the electronic clinical record a reality in Mexico.
The road has not been easy. WeeCompany has sought to grow organically since its inception, focusing on the digital transformation of health insurers as an initial path. The insurance sector is just beginning to promote changes, unlike banks, which have mostly managed to convert to digital banking.
The company has faced barriers and resistance to start a true transformation of the health and insurance sector. Some of the challenges? The belief of health insurers and providers in relying on internally developed solutions, a strategy that in other industries has already been shown not to work; The example of banks shows us how they have achieved their digital transformation only through collaboration with technology startups or fintechs.
Also the so-called “legacy systems”, which complicate the processes and limit their ability to have a quality service focused on the user. In addition to the fact that there is still dependence on expensive paper-based processes that lack data for decision-making.
Despite the obstacles, little by little they have been making the insurance sector change its mentality and commit to making its business models digitally more efficient for the immediate benefit of patients and policyholders, for whom the health sector and the insurance industry continue to be synonymous with bureaucracy, complexity and poor service.
In Mexico, only 9.8% of the population has health insurance. The lack of a culture of prevention and the inaccessibility of what is offered in the market make it increasingly difficult to increase this figure. The reality is that in the country a large part of the population opts for out-of-pocket spending as an alternative to medical care, this being more than 49% of total spending.
Pfirst battles as entrepreneurs
With this panorama, Jesús Hernández and his partners decided to pioneer the digital health revolution in Mexico, while seeing that the transformation was being achieved in other countries and industries with positive results.
Since its inception, WeeCompany has been a technology company. With a team of 14 people, it began to promote its service model based on a digital health ecosystem that allows electronic commerce.
The company has grown conservatively without resorting to large investment rounds. It is currently made up of 120 people and is supporting various organizations in the health insurance industry, which have managed to optimize up to 50% of their operations. It should be noted that today some key healthcare providers in Mexico are delegating their digital transformation to WeeCompany.
Some data that have caught our attention regarding the traction of the project are the following:
- They actively collaborate with the InsurTech Mexico Association and the HealthTech Mexico Association
- The digital health ecosystem created has more than 500,000 active users who have portability of electronic clinical records linked to medical care, and has allowed 2.5 million patients to receive some care, including the management of chronic patients
- The technology processes 150,000 teleconsultations a year and enables purchases for more than 250 million dollars a year, including health insurance, medical services, hospitals, laboratories and pharmacies, as well as strategic purchases between insurers and drug wholesalers.
- Its electronic prescription model is connected with the main pharmacy chains and laboratories in the country to do electronic commerce
Scaling towards the digitization of health
The growth of this Mexican company could have no limits. The key to the next stage lies in the scalability of the technology to increase the volume of clients in Mexico and to be able to export its model to other markets.
In recent years, WeeCompany has established itself as a leader in the digital transformation of the health sector in Mexico. He is currently formalizing alliances and expanding his experience towards international clients.
Recently Global Excel Management, a leading Canadian company in the administration of health services with a presence in more than 90 countries and more than 2 billion dollars in management of these services, has completed a significant investment process in WeeCompany.
Mexican technology seeks to streamline the operation of Global Excel’s health services and together, both companies see a great opportunity to solve the problems facing the health insurance industry in Mexico. Among them, the high cost of the operation and the quality of service to the insured.
For this reason, in addition to the investment, they have jointly launched WeeMedic, a new technology-focused healthcare management company that focuses on three pillars: cost containment, transparency with real-time information, and a user experience disruptive.
WeeCompany is definitely a company to watch in the coming years, as one of the key players for disruption in the health and insurance industry in Mexico.