Sympany’s family doctor model – now also with the virtual medical centre option
Basel, 18 October 2017 – eedoctors offers medical consultations via video with experienced doctors based in Switzerland who specialise in general and emergency medicine. Patients can access the virtual medical centre from their smartphones, specifically the eedoctors app, which has been available since May 2017. The video function allows patients to have a personal consultation where the doctor can carry out some examinations virtually – an innovation in Swiss telemedicine. Following that, patients will receive the results of their examinations straight away together with advice on treatment. Documents such as sick notes and prescriptions can also be sent directly to the app. If necessary, patients can also be referred to hospital, a specialist or an emergency care centre.
The advantages this system has to offer Sympany policyholders speak for themselves: no appointments, no waiting rooms, no suspension of admissions; the app can be used anywhere in the world and offers personal consultations and long surgery hours – Monday to Sunday from 8am to 9pm.
Sympany and eedoctors working together
Sympany will be including the eedoctors service in its casamed family doctor savings model from 1 January 2018 on a trial basis. In addition, Sympany is the only health insurance company in Switzerland to offer a premium discount to customers who use the eedoctors service first when they fall ill. Sympany is able to apply this discount because of the lower costs resulting from improved benefit management in the Managed Care models compared with the costs associated with the model where policyholders are free to choose their doctor.
“Thanks to eedoctors, you can have your family doctor in your pocket at all times. You only need to visit a medical centre for specific treatments”, explains Mario Bernasconi, Head of Products & Services and a Member of the Executive Board at Sympany. “By offering this option, we want to make life easier for our customers”.
Pascal Fraenkler, CEO of eedoctors, adds: “Many Swiss medical centres cannot take on any more new patients and emergency care centres and acute hospitals are feeling the strain as well. We’re happy to be able to work with Sympany towards bucking this trend and ensuring that people have access to basic medical care”.
About Sympany
Sympany is the refreshingly different insurance company that provides made-to-measure protection and assistance with no red tape. Sympany offers health and accident insurance for individuals and companies as well as property and liability insurances. Its head office is in Basel.
Sympany is the first Swiss insurance company to pay out surpluses for basic insurance as well as supplementary insurance. Surpluses are reimbursed if the cost of medical treatment ends up being much lower than anticipated when setting premiums.
Its profit in 2016 was CHF 55.7 million. The total premium income was CHF 1,002 million. The company has around 248,000 private customers, some 184,000 of whom have basic insurance cover in accordance with the Federal Law on Sickness Insurance (KVG), and all of them are served by 489 employees. Sympany has around 5,000 companies in its corporate customer portfolio.