A new series about the market disruptors that are coming for your markets and patients

If you keep up with the latest health care industry news, you may have noticed an unexpected (and until now, out-of-category) player entering the game: Walmart.

With the recent opening of its first Health Super Center in Dallas, Georgia, Walmart is pioneering a new way to bring basic medical care to consumers. Built as a true one-stop-shop, the health center offers primary care, labs, X-ray, counseling, dental, optical, health insurance enrollment and more at one “hometown”-convenient location. And true to the brand, the clinic promises “low, transparent pricing…regardless of insurance status.”

A new kind of health care experience that prioritizes convenience, ease and price transparency? Walmart’s clearly been doing its research about the human-centered experiences that today’s health care consumers are looking for.

Learn More: What’s Necessary to Capture Gen Z Health Care Consumers

But Walmart is far from the only new player entering the game. As we introduced in the 2019 Humanizing Brand Experience report, innovators and entrepreneurs from the health category and beyond have set their sights on revolutionizing the way today’s consumers experience and engage with care, wellness and their broader health.

At Monigle, we’ve given these new-kids-on-the-block a name: The Disruptors. They are the brands that are carving out a space for themselves with innovative approaches and services designed to meet the emotional and functional needs of the modern consumer. While traditional healthcare organizations tend to be slow-moving and conservative, The Disruptors aren’t afraid to move fast and make adjustments based on human needs. And when it comes to the experience they deliver, disruptors are blowing traditional health care organizations out of the water. In fact, when we compared experience rankings for disruptors like Parsley Health and Forward against those for more than 118 traditional care organizations across the U.S., we found that the newcomers beat traditional brands on just about every facet of the experience.

Disruptor

(noun)

An unexpected new player (or an established, out-of-category brand entering the field) that is redefining experience with an innovative approach centered on human needs

The cautious, slow-to-react nature of the traditional health care complex has left a window of opportunity wide open for these industrious new players—and they’ve moved right in to fill it. In our new “Meet the Disruptors” series, we’ll introduce you to some of the unique disruptor brands shaking up the health care industry and share our take on the way they’re filling the functional and emotional needs of today’s consumers. To get us started, here are three of the disruptors we can’t stop talking about:

1. Parsley Health:

A brand built for Personalization (“Provides individualized care specific to a patient’s unique needs”)

Parsley Health is redefining primary care with a personalized, whole-person approach that goes beyond the standard check-up. With appointments that last 4x the length of a “typical” doctor visit, Parsley providers are focused on understanding each patient on a human level so that they can create 7-part health plans customized to fit each person’s unique needs. Comparing their unique membership plan to “a gym membership with a team of personal trainers”, Parsley empowers patients and providers with technology to keep track of symptoms, progress and health results over time.

Team Working Together

Learn More: How Parsley Health is disrupting health care branding

2. CVS Health MinuteClinic & HealthHUB:

A brand built for Convenience & Ease (“Makes it quick and easy to get the care I need”)

Through a series of initiatives in recent years, CVS Health has set out to make getting health care as quick and easy as a CVS-run for a prescription or groceries. CVS MinuteClinic locations provide 120+ health services on-site, aiming to provide quality medical care on a schedule that works for busy consumers. The new HealthHUB store format expands this mission, with a goal to bring local access to convenient care support and services in a health-focused location. Currently, CVS has three pilot stores open in Texas, with big plans to expand  to 1,500 operating locations by the end of 2020. With MinuteClinic’s focus on efficiency and HealthHUB’s every day—and evening—availability, it’s clear that CVS Health is prioritizing convenience with their portfolio of consumer-centric health care interactions.

Minute Clinic

Learn More: CVS Healthhub: the health care experience consumers are asking for

3. Crossover Health

A brand built for Freedom (“Makes me feel like I have options when it comes to my health”)

Crossover Health is out to “change healthcare, not because it is easy, but because it was broken” by transforming the way employers care for the health of their people.  By connecting the dots between health, care and lifestyle, Crossover aims to give people the freedom to get care on their own terms. With easy app scheduling and no insurance barriers to leap over, employees can choose when and how to get (and schedule) care in a way that works for the way they work—whether it’s at home through virtual visits, or seamlessly located at the office.

Woman Blowing Confetti

After reading about these three disruptors, it’s worth considering what they all have in common:

    1. First, they’ve started with core human needs—things like “Freedom”, “Convenience & Ease”, and “Personalization”—that drive decision-making in a market where consumers expect to have increasingly higher levels of control.
    2. Second, each has been relentless in making that attribute the centerpiece of their experience—from strategy to tactics.
    3. Lastly, they’ve expressed the brand in simple, clear and differentiated—visually and verbally—ways that consumers are eager and happy to connect with.

Stay tuned for more on the disruptors revolutionizing the health care experience. And in the meantime, we want to hear from you—who are the health care disruptors keeping you up at night? Let us know here.

Justin Wartell
October 10, 2019 By Justin Wartell