👉 Background: Medibank is the largest private health insurer in Australia with over 27% of the health insurance market. Yep, the same Medibank that suffered a major cyber attack last year, which leaked the data of over 9.7 million current and former customers.

👉 What happened: In 2021, Medibank made a $63 million investment for a 49% stake in a primary care operator called MyHealth Medical Group. MyHealth has a network of 86 medical clinics across Australia. But now, Medibank is back at the table for a bigger chunk.

👉 What else: Medibank is looking to become the majority shareholder in MyHealth Medical Group. And, the goal is to push Medibank customers to see GPs and address medical issues before it becomes a costly medical emergency.

What's the key learning?

💡Health insurers are moving from being reactive to proactive in the healthcare space to improve their bottom line.

💡By increasing their presence in primary healthcare, Medibank is setting the stage to prevent health issues before they get to hospital. In fact, more than 11 million Australians have a chronic disease. And about one third of these are preventable.

💡Preventive healthcare can often lead to fewer emergencies - and fewer emergencies mean fewer expensive hospital claims, which directly helps Medibank's profits.

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