CareNow Presents "PayLater" Service Focused on Health Care

Having access to high-quality health care is an essential requirement in efforts to prevent disease, maintain health, and improve quality of life. In reality, not everyone has the same access to health services.

In Indonesia, insurance penetration is still low and not all services are covered by government or private insurance. OJK data shows that the penetration rate of insurance in Indonesia in 2021 will only reach 3,18%, consisting of penetration of social insurance (1,45%), life insurance (1,19%), general insurance (0,47%), and the rest is mandatory insurance.

This inspired Andrew Soebagijo, Co-Founder and COO of CareNow to develop CareNow services that can reduce payment worries, while receiving the best care. In an interview with DailySocial, Andrew said he believes that the health industry in Indonesia has a lot of untapped potential.

"Financial problems often plague patients and healthcare providers, and there is currently no solution that can solve their problems. For example, medical inflation is 3-8x higher than general inflation. We want to ensure Indonesians can have equal access to quality care high," he said.

CareNow is a technology company in Indonesia that develops business solution technology platforms for medical services. This service helps patients get financing needs, by providing affordable installments of care/medication from trusted providers.

Founded in June 2022, CareNow started its operations with a team of three people, namely Stefanie Juergens (CEO), Alexander Anggada (CTO), and Andrew Soebagijo (COO).

In providing this financing service, CareNow cooperates with PT Digital Micro Indonesia (DanaBijak) to operate the PayLater feature which is licensed and supervised by the Financial Services Authority (OJK) with number KEP-92/D.05/2021. This collaboration ensures that transactions at CareNow are safe and reliable, carried out through a mechanism regulated and supervised by the OJK.

This service offers installments with a tenor of 2 to 6 times. For now, the financing offered through CareNow focuses on care that is not covered by either private or public insurance. Users can choose the treatment they need by registering on the site and filling in their personal data. Payments can currently be made via bank transfer virtual accounts.

"Currently, we have built a solid team of ten people who are all passionate about making an impact in healthcare," he explained.

In its early days, the company faced challenges in implementing this new payment method. Patients are used to conventional/ordinary payment methods for treatment and are reluctant to try the new system of treatment first, pay later.

His team is making ongoing efforts to educate patients and healthcare providers about this new payment method and help them see the benefits. As time has passed, adoption rates are now getting higher and resistance is decreasing.

Future plan

The PayLater or "Buy First Pay Later" payment system has now been offered by many players E-commerce with a focus on consumer or shopping needs. CareNow wants to create equal opportunity in the effort to make accessibility and affordability of high-quality health care for everyone.

CareNow now focus on health financing due to the large amount of health care available in Indonesia but limited payment options.This results in the inability of patients to pay for treatment, delaying their health care, and reducing their quality of life.

"Therefore, we are committed to helping patients get the care they want and supporting health care providers to provide the care patients need," emphasized Andrew.

Not long ago, the companies completed Demo-Day together Antler. "This is where dr. Nani (Stefanie Juergens) and I met, joined forces and founded CareNow. During the program, I met like-minded people who are passionate about building startups/building solutions for communities, learning from respected founders, and get to know the world of startups," he continued.

Previously, they had also participated in a training program from Iterative. After being on the program for 4 weeks, they were encouraged to join the W23 wave. "Iterative really helps us in doing a lot of hyper-experiments and ensuring that product demand exists before worrying about other aspects of the business," said Andrew.

According to Andrew, joining the accelerator program allows his team to connect with experienced mentors who can advise on product development, strategy and fundraising. It can also be a medium for exchanging ideas on growth strategies and experimenting with activation strategies, providing access to investors, which helps in scaling quickly.

On the funding side, CareNow closed its pre-initial round back in January. Currently, the company is starting to focus on early-stage fundraising. Andrew revealed that his team is very open to venture capital interested in investing into the platform that connects healthcare and fintech

In addition, Andrew also revealed the company's mission to open the widest possible access to high-quality health care so that it can be affordable for everyone. "And to do that, we want to expand our presence to more healthcare providers across Indonesia."