Felix Schneuwly - Digitalisation represents both an opportunity and challenge for health insurance

“As citizens, people want to have freedom of choice. Thus transparency from the providers is very important but also a challenge as, in transparent markets, free choice is not particularly valuable as people have access to all information,” says Felix Schneuwly, speaking at the second meeting of the first Sciana cohort.

As head of public affairs and specialist for the Swiss health insurance and health care system at Comparis.ch, Schneuwly has developed a heavy interest in transparency. He says, “In Switzerland, financial transparency is very clear as we know exactly how many francs and centimes our system costs, thus it’s relatively easy to compare financial rates of insurance. But in terms of quality and what citizens get from their providers, improvement is needed.”

Schneuwly believes digitalisation provides an opportunity for comparison services to focus on the quality of transparency and efficiently present information to citizens. He says, “This would allow them to make effective comparisons and boost the market, as competition would not be only of price but also of quality.”

Comparis.ch is currently developing a platform that will allow patients to have access to their waiting times. This is based on the fact that, in Switzerland, there is a widespread belief that waiting times depend on the insurance model a person has. Schneuwly says, “With this kind of transparency, we not only want to dispel rumours but (we also want to) give answers to our clients. We want them to have a straight answer, as well as have them understand why they might wait for longer than others.”
In Switzerland’s case, however, Schneuwly believes digitalisation does carry a cost. He suggests “it pushes competition to an international level, as the market becomes larger. Through digitalisation, international markets obtain access to a market that was comprised mostly of national and regional providers.”

Reflecting on the second Sciana meeting, Schneuwly says, “Through Sciana, my conviction that developing more transparent systems on the level of quality should be a priority is stronger than ever. Transparency requires that people understand the information, which represents a problem, but lessons such as those of digitalisation allow us to get better at it. I hope the next two meetings will provide even more lessons in this regard.”