Case Study on:

American Well: The Doctor Will E-See You Now

Group 10 - Section C

Group member

NAME ENROLLMENT NUMBER

Mohammad Nadir Fahim 20A2HP424
Ramandeep 20A2HP428
Sagar Dahiya 20A2HP430
Priyankan Goswami 20A2HP443
Nishant Kumar 20A2HP463

Submitted to:
Dr. Manoj Das,
Assistant Professor & Area Chair –Marketing
IMT Hyderabad

Summary
The co-founders of American Well the Online Care Company, Ido Schoenberg and Roy
Schoenberg, wanted to bring a revolution in the field of health care by emerging new ideas of
connecting patients with the doctors and curtailing the treatment cost.
American Well was founded in 2006, the concept of online care was given a concrete shape by
the two brothers where patients would appoint for medi-assist online. They raised twice the
capital from their insurance companies. It differentiated itself from its market competitors by
leveraging the internet to redistribute medical services.
In no time the US system for financing patient care gained its popularity. Different surveys found
that 14% American did not see doctor due to cost concern in 2008. The Tele-medicine services
ensured 24*7 availability of physicians over telephone. They enabled constant diagnosis. Minute
clinic was a medi-assist provider in every locality.
Team Edition seemed to keep a regular connection between the patients and the specialists.
Although Team Edition had a first mover advantage still they faced difficulty in providing
multiple services in sales pitch. Finally Ido and Roy improvised ways of the tele-assist, insurance
policies. The customers would review their doctors’ credentials which ensured effective medical
service.

Q1. Do you share the assessment of the founders regarding the potential of online care to
revolutionize healthcare delivery?
A1. With the exponential change in how we communicate, it is only a matter of time that we will
adapt it for healthcare systems. Online care could be leveraged to expand healthcare into life of
lot more people as it provides certain advantages over traditional health care to three key players
of healthcare: Patients, Providers, and public and private payors.
Advantages to Patients: Patients will gain access to quality health care with ease of time and
place. It will also provide a cheaper alternative and a source of additional consultancy, for any
on-going treatment or before going to any treatment. A 2009 survey showed that waiting time for
Physician can range from 7 days in Miami to 55+ days in LA and Boston. This can be effectively
reduced to minutes. Also, shortage of quality physicians in rural areas and regional shortage of
specialists like mental health & obstetrics will be eased. Although there were some concerns
about patient data privacy but using a password protection will keep such cases minimal.
Advantages to Providers: Using Online Care will attenuate the need for most of the
infrastructure and help them attain new level of flexibility. Lots of retired doctors, doctors
working in rural areas, recently graduates and those who want to earn extra income on weekends
or free time etc. will able to attend patients in their comfort zone. As online care is not limited to
number of physicians or patients its facet of many-to-many approach compared to point-to-point
by traditional walk in will help it in attaining large consumer base.
Advantages to Payors: The amount insurance company will reimburse to physician for every
appointment is roughly $25 which is significantly low when compared to office visit. A 2009
survey showed that payors can save $3.36 per patient/month using online care. Private insurer
could also gain revenues and connection with future customers if they let non-members access
their physician network. Online care would help to achieve a stronger bond between practitioners
and payors, as their financial incentives will align. This is due to the fact that service
practitioners won’t be incentivized by insurance companies to increase services. Most
importantly insurance companies will able to attain certain degree of reputation by engaging
themselves with online care, which are aimed to improve customer ease.
Other than these there are some general trends indicating a need for online health care delivery
are
 According to a survey in 2006 74% patients wanted to communicate with their doctors using
email but only 4% were doing it.
 An increase in number of percentage of physicians from 23% to 36% between 2001-08, who
are now communicating with their patients through various digital means.
 A significant demographic shift will occur in US population as in next 20 years 20% of its
population will be 65+. This will cause increase in demand for medical care delivery. US is
already in shortage of PCPs. This will increase the supply demand gap which can only be
sustained by using digital platforms such as online care.
 Early trials had shown a high employee utilization of online care equipped worksites clinics
 High usage of Online care, due to its lower cost and immediacy of receiving professional
attention for medical condition will further help patients to get better health outcomes. Thus,
both insurance companies and individual have to endure less cost for treatment which will
further increase its popularity among both.
So we can say that assessment of founders Ido Schoenberg and Roy Schoenberg were agreeably
to us.

Q2. What value do you see “Team Edition” creating? What are the barriers to adoption
you can visualize?
A2. Team Edition was the new product or next generation product developed by American
Well to revolutionize the interactions between doctors.
Team Edition is basically developed by American Well for replacing the traditional approach of
evolution and for resolving the problems of patient waiting time to see a physician or specialist.
Below are some values created by Team Edition:
 By the help of this new featuring product, the Primary Care Physicians (PCP) could login to
the system and reach out to any specialists who were available online or in not in a meeting
with other patients.
 It helps the patient by providing them with early diagnosis before further complications
arose.
 It also helps in reducing the time taken in to follow up with the procedure that a patient needs
to take to consult a doctor.
 It helps the patients to connect with the PCPs and the specialists together.
 This also helps to consult the patients with their PCPs and specialists from anywhere of the
state.
 This product added some values for its stakeholders and driver the company towards its
ultimate goals.
Barriers to its Adoption:
As we know everything has two aspects, positive as well as negative, so does Team Edition too.
Some of the barriers or difficulties on adoption of Team Edition that can be visualized are:
 There are no such explanation about the right time for rollout.
 They are trying to push multiple services in one sales could be confusing and wil divert with
the adoption of core product.
 For the success of the product the coordination between doctors i.e. (PCPs and specialist etc.)
are very necessary.
 The whole process is online featuring and due to system failure there would be change of
delay and can be a by-problem.

Q3. Which of the new market opportunities seem promising?

A3. While Ido and Roy were busy in focusing on health insurance market they can see that there
were some new marketing opportunities going side by side.
Some of the opportunities are listed below:
 Health Consulting - Installation of an Online Care kiosk in emergency room in the
hospitals will help the patients who are waiting for their turn. The physicians will help
them to have preliminary information about their ailment.
 Delivery Network - Patients can consult the physicians before going to the hospital
which will help them understanding their problems. And is the physician can solve it or
not.
 Online Consulting - Those physicians whose hospitals are in low demanding
geographical areas can use online Care and by doing so they can build good relationship
with patient who might visit their particular hospital despite of the distance.
 Retail Clinics – It can also install the Online Care kiosk because in these clinics Nurse
Practitioner(NP’s) are the highest level clinical staff, offering physicians in these clinics
can boost patient.
 Pharmacy Chain – It can also be the users of American Well as many of the customers
fails in asking the questions of pharmacist in person either they are very shy in public or
they forget to ask questions with the help of American Well’s Online Care Kiosk the
customers can ask questions from anywhere at any time.
 Insurance – It provides a large pool of customers and also offer cost effective solutions
to everyone.
Among them all Insurance sector is the most important market opportunity for American
Well due to the following reasons:
a. They provide large pool of patients and doctors.
b. They also have internal means to convince the physicians and patients to use online
care.
 c. They are also open to Non-members and provide consultations to patients who want
to pay by their own.
Hence, initially insurance company were the only profit building sector. They also build a
goodwill with their members and encourage the members to go for Online Heath kiosk.