Technology key to smarter healthcare
PhilCare CEO Jaeger Tanco has been leveraging technology to make healthcare more accessible to Filipinos
At only 37, PhilCare president and chief executive officer Jaeger Tanco is already taking healthcare to a new level.
PhilCare president and CEO Jaeger L. Tanco
An entrepreneurial management graduate of University of Asia and the Pacific who also earned his Master in Business Administration from the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Tanco is also the president and CEO of digital PR agency Comm&Sense Inc, as well as the vice president for investor relations of STI Education Systems Holdings Inc.
Being exposed to different businesses, Tanco had brought a lot of changes to PhilCare when Maestro Holdings came onto the scene in 2009. He leveraged technology to make healthcare more efficient and accessible to Filipinos.
“HMOs need to utilize technology and translate it towards ease and convenience for their clients and make the experience worth every cent they pay,” Tanco said during a press briefing held in Makati City.
During his tenure as President and CEO, PhilCare introduced several technological innovations. The company was the pioneer in Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled membership cards that are designed to make hospital transactions faster, more efficient, and almost paperless. PhilCare is also the first in the industry to launch a mobile application called HeyPhil that auto-generates Letters of Authorization (LOAs) for instant and easy availment of medical care.
While all these happened during his watch, Tanco is quick to give credit to his team. “It takes also a good team to be able to execute it. Idea is one thing but being able to do it and execute it (is another). I think we also have to acknowledge the team who is eager to help,” he shared in recent interview with The Manila Times.
With the national penetration rate of health insurance only at four percent, the young executive believes that HMOs must expand their horizons beyond the usual corporate health coverage and reach more of the population.
“Only four percent of Filipinos have healthcare coverage and most of them have it as a benefit from their employers. With this level of penetration, it’s important to ask why isn’t investing in healthcare something more accessible and top of mind of Filipinos?” he pointed out.
Tanco recognizes the importance of social media in communicating and connecting to their clients. Citing a 2018 report by We Are Social where the Philippines is the number one in social media usage in the world, the young CEO hopes to penetrate the 96 percent of Filipinos who doesn’t have health insurance yet.
“Healthcare has to make sense to Filipinos for them to purchase it and we need to provide them with sensible healthcare from acquisition, to benefits, and up to actual utilization,” PhilCare President and CEO said.
The young executive and the company saw the trend going towards digital early on and they worked towards utilizing technology to enhance their customer’s experience with their healthcare.
PhilCare is set to launch the next phase in its technology-driven customer experience with Digimed, the newest feature of HeyPhil. Digimed will allow users to call doctors and specialists with the app and consult for illnesses and symptoms for free.
It also in Tanco’s aim to reach Filipinos who cannot acquire healthcare plans. “The ER Vantage has been launched and it is basically to tap a market that are not really part of corporations,” he highlighted.
With services such as ER Vantage, Filipinos can purchase affordable health cards through an eCommerce platform. As easy as booking a flight, one can smoothly get a prepaid health card that is valid for one year.
In the future, Tanco will continue to focus on making quality health services accessible and creating products that meet their customers’ needs. He sees a very bright and technology-advanced PhilCare ahead of him.
“We are pretty young. We’re pretty dynamic. We want to see what the needs of the market is and again how to communicate with them, so that they would know what we are doing and people can take advantage of what we are doing. We will be in places. We will be visible on social media. We will be visible in the internet,” he concluded.
Mary Grace Datiles
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