Bupa Organization - Private Health Insurance Provider in Australia and New Zealand - Case Study Example

PROFESSIONAL BUSINESS CONSULTANT Student’s name Code + Course Name Professor University City/State Date Executive Summary. In Australia, most citizens who pay income tax that means all the employed Australians make a contribution of 2% Medicare levy to the public hospital system. This is an entitlement to public hospital care as a public patient. Public hospitalization comes with limitations, for instance, the patient does not enjoy the privilege to choose doctors, and admission is mostly in teaching hospitals where it’s highly populated and chances are; you may be administered by a trainee medical staff which is not what most people prefer. Public hospital care also comes with long waiting lists. (Pearson, 2014) Ability to choose one’s own most preferred hospital, enjoy the privacy of a private room, having one’s own surgeon at a time most convenient to the patient, a nice meal and a glass of wine only comes when you choose a private cover. (Pearson, 2014) This research entails on Bupa organization which is a private health insurance provider in Australia and New Zealand. Bupa is a leading healthcare provider internationally with a purpose to enable its customer’s live healthier and longer while healthy and happy. A. The main purpose of Bupa is to ensure its customer’s health and happiness buy providing better health services. Bupa not only want people to live longer but also healthier, happier and with a sense of wellbeing. B. Bupa’s values are: caring about people’s wellbeing and health, respecting people’s privacy, dignity and individuality, ethically sane to the people’s and environment’s interests, enabling people to make proper decisions by providing proper advice and providing solutions, dedication in the provision on proper services in a professional way to reach greater heights, and most of all accountable for efficiency, quality and value. Different people are looking for various options in healthcare insurance. Someone may be after value for money and benefits that fit the changing needs, another person may be looking for a health care that is concerned and readily available to provide advice at all times, a mother needs tailor made healthcare for the whole family, a travelling dad needs a health cover that is easy to manage at any time of the day or night, and older people need a healthcare provider that is able to provide tools and support at all times for a healthier life at old age. Bupa has it all. C. Bupa’s global presence: Bupa is an international organization with branches all over the world. It is Australia’s largest privately managed health insurer with over 3.5 million customers’, over 100 retail centers, over 60 aged care homes and over 4,300 aged care residents. Bupa New Zealand has over 47 aged care homes, over 3001 aged care residents, over 16 specialized dementia care centers, over 18 retirement villages and over 11001 medical alarms. In USA, Health Dialog is a leading provider of healthcare analytics and decision support, in Spain, Santa’s is Spain’s leading health insurer, with over 2 million customers, in the UK, it is the largest healthcare provider with over 2.8 million customers, in Hong Kong, there are over 280,000 customers, international health insurance partnering with All trust Insurance Company, 160,000 customers in Latin America and Caribbean and slowly encroaching Mexico, one of the largest health insurers in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia with over 1.2 million customers, Max Puta partnering with Max India in Bihar, leading corporate and individual health insurer in Thailand with over 250,000 customers. D. Bupa’s Journey: Bupa has underwent changes that are significant over the years, these changes are steps towards realizing goals that is to be united globally and grow to become the most recommended and trusted healthcare organization in the world. Bupa takes care of more than 11 million people across 190 countries. E. Brand Building: From 2011, Bupa changed their working strategy by combining three brands HBA, MBF and Mutual Community to become Bupa and this mindset of working as a healthcare partner rather than health insurer has brought huge success. ‘Finding a healthier you’ campaign has seen greater market share and competitive advantage. Bupa’s brand building focuses on demonstrating to members how they can proactively manage their health. Hypothetically, it’s more rewarding and cheaper to occasionally visit the dentist than waiting for the major rescue when you are seriously ill. This is by explaining how Bupa’s health information, services and innovative tools aid in health management and better decision making concerning their health. Bupa’s competitive advantage extends greater than just provision of a health cover to health coaching, health assessment, international health cover, dental care, optical care, corporate health services and aged care. F. Bopa’s challenges: Chronic illness, ageing population and rising demand for better healthcare are major challenges facing Bopa healthcare organization. Bupa’s graduate nursing program, is an initiative leading in the industry designed to increase the number of specialized nurses which will help in the management of aged care. G. Innovative solutions: Bupa Health Dialog and The Coach Program help people living with chronic illness to improve their outcomes. Health tools, mobile apps and calculators ease the management of illnesses. Partnerships foundations of Bupa include: Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Cancer Council Victoria and Royal Flying Doctor Services. H. Ethical Concerns: Bupa constantly involve with policy makers, public and private healthcare providers and community-based providers proactively. Bupa encourages and supports research and development for the realization of a healthcare environment that helps people to understand, take action for a health attention at the right place, price and time. I. Healthcare Advocacy: Bupa raises a voice for its customers regarding policy issues and health reforms. For example, in 2012 the Federal Government made alterations regarding the functioning of private insurance companies, income evaluation for operation and the increment of Medicare Levy Surcharge for high income earners. Although this is a competitor’s(government) counter measure, Bupa has actively engaged to protect and support its members by representing their rights to the policy decision makers and the key leaders, and publicly discussing these matters transparently to the public through social media platforms. J. Partnering with Stakeholders: being a part of the global Bupa group, Bupa keeps in track with the advancements in the healthcare industry for the betterment of the customers’ experience. Bupa closely works with the private and broader healthcare providers, for example groups like the Australian Medical Association, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Australian Medicare Local Alliance, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, and Australian Disease Management Association. Bupa provides access of innovative information to millions of people, members and non members around the world. For instance, partnerships like Bupa Walk to Work Day and Bupa around the Bay connects to people worldwide and encourages a healthier lifestyle. K. Diversification: Bupa takes into high consideration the constantly changing customer needs and preferences so that they can be met. Maintaining one Bupa brand advocates towards provision of Bupa services tailor-made according to certain various group of customers. New retail outlets such as Bondi in NSW and BLINK optical have innovative programs and online health-related tools readily available to customers for the support of maintenance of a healthy lifestyle. Multicultural World Stores in Sydney’s World Square focuses on the Chinese people and culture. The store operates according to the Chinese cultural preferences. Conclusion. Bupa has more than more than 3.4 million members in both Australia and New Zealand, more than 4.1 billion dollars paid in benefits, more than 40,000 medical providers paid by Bupa, more than 1,160 hospitals, more than 11,000,000 extra claims per year and more than 970,000 admissions per year. Bupa Health Dialog has enabled more than 30,000 chronically ill patients make better decisions, Bupa has completed over 40,000 corporate health checks, over 27,000 admissions for baby delivery, more than 1,500 members use The Coach Program to increase their heart health, over 12,000 New Zealanders supplied and assisted with Bupa Medical Alarms and more than 70,000 online health assessments started. Decisions in the health insurance industry must be made with regard to the stakeholders and members. Before making a crucial decision, the managers have to assess the situation and determine how the change is going to affect the financial status of the company. For instance, it is the fundamental drive of health insurance companies such as Bupa to keep premiums to the minimum for the satisfaction of the members; so basically, the healthcare providers set the prices of the premiums by regulating daily bed rates. If one healthcare provider looks to increase the bed rate so that they can enjoy higher premium percentages, which means more share value and shareholder dividends, health insurance companies have to reconsider the status and reaction of other members. Agreeing to increase the premium percentages may risk a health insurance company’s market share by losing many stakeholders because of the sudden increase in the premium rates. This in turn benefits one company, and it doesn’t mean they will not opt to undertake a similar action again which would result to major loses. Reference: Bupa annual report. (2016). http://www.bupa.com.au/. Retrieved 13 April 2016, from http://www.bupa.com.au/staticfiles/BupaP3/Health and Wellness/MediaFiles/PDFs/bupa-annual-review-2012.pdf Pearson, J. (2014). Australia’s ten best private health funds. Financial Review. Retrieved 12 April 2016, from http://www.afr.com/it-pro/australias-ten-best-private-health-funds-20141205-k0mhj Read More