PETALING JAYA: Employee medical benefits platform Mednefits has raised RM24 million in its Series A funding round, led by BLoyalty Sdn Bhd, owner-operator of B Infinite, a digital engagement platform that serves merchants from various industries and businesses.
B-Infinite will also work with Mednefits to enhance and automate the medical benefits for its clients’ employees across Malaysia, amounting to RM55 million by 2021.
Mednefits connects companies and their employees directly to medical providers, through its platform that tracks and processes employees’ claims in real-time, thereby offering automated, affordable and accessible healthcare. To date, Mednefits has connected over 50,000 employees from 500 companies in Singapore and Malaysia – including 7-Eleven, Fish & Co, and ViewQwest – to over 2,000 healthcare providers.
Mednefits will have more than 1,500 panel clinics across Malaysia by first-quarter 2021.
Employers across Asia Pacific have long found the rising cost of employee benefits to be a key challenge, with 69% of them citing it as the top challenge faced. In particular, conventional employer-sponsored health insurance tends to bundle inpatient and outpatient insurance together, thereby increasing the cost to employers.
Additionally, healthcare administrators, employers and employees routinely submit and process paper-based claims, inflating administrative costs.
Mednefits CEO Chris Teo (pix) said: “Digital technologies can help companies address several business and operational challenges. By having businesses of all sizes on Mednefits’ cloud-based platform, and an expansive network of panel clinics, we are able to offer competitive and flexible corporate healthcare plans, while simplifying and automating reimbursements.”
The government unveiled support for businesses to automate and digitalise operations during the recent 2021 Budget announcement, with the aim of promoting long-term productivity.
Measures include topping up the SME Digitalization Grant Scheme and the Automation Grant by up to RM150 million, as well as extending the Industrial Digitalization Transformation Scheme, valued at RM1 billion, until 2023.
“As Malaysia charts its transformation into a digital economy, Mednefits will work with local businesses to overhaul and streamline their employee benefits, including their corporate medical insurance. We will use this investment to scale growth in Malaysia and Singapore, while also improving the product’s self-service capabilities by growing our technological know-how,” Teo said.
