Description of Session
Watsi is a nonprofit that builds technology to finance healthcare. Watsi has developed a software platform called Meso to administer national health insurance in resource-limited countries to facilitate progress towards universal health coverage (UHC). Running health insurance systems at scale is operationally intensive and often fails due to administrative challenges that result from using pen and paper based systems. It takes months to enroll patients, sometimes up to a year to pay health facilities, and the government has virtually no access to the data it needs to manage and scale the system. Meso is a technology platform that helps governments successfully administer and scale health insurance to all people. Designed alongside users, the platform digitizes health insurance administration from end-to-end and manages the five core processes: enrollment, identification, claims submission, claims processing, and reporting. By digitizing the enrollment process through the Meso mobile application, people receive their health insurance card on the spot. Once a patient enters a health facility, their record can be pulled up within seconds through Meso’s mobile application. The labs, drugs and services that the patient receives are digitally recorded and submitted by the health facility and can be reviewed by health system managers in real-time. Digital processing of claims reduces the time it takes to health facilities to get reimbursed, ensuring that staff can be paid on time and drugs remain stocked. At the national level, the government can utilize facility level data on drugs, labs and services consumed, to make informed decisions around drug forecasting and procurement to manage and improve the health system. By expanding coverage and surfacing health and financial data through Meso, Watsi aims to contribute to improving health outcomes and increasing financial protection of patients, with the ultimate goal of helping governments achieve UHC.
