Digital Health: From Novelty to Necessity
Over the past few years, digital health tools have shifted from being a nice-to-have novelty to a core necessity for healthcare stakeholders. By 2025, health insurers find themselves at an inflection point. They face rising cost pressures, staff shortages, and changing consumer expectations, all driving a push to modernise outdated processes. In fact, accelerated digital transformation is cited as the trend most likely to impact global health systems in 2025, with roughly 70% of health executives planning significant investments in digital platforms and tools.
For insurers, who historically lagged behind other industries in tech adoption, this year represents a tipping point. Embracing digital care platforms is no longer optional, it’s essential to remain efficient, competitive, and responsive to member needs [1].
Consumers Demand a Connected Health Experience
One major catalyst is the modern healthcare consumer. Patients today expect the kind of convenient, seamless digital experience they get in retail or banking, and insurers are taking note. “Accustomed to using digital products and services in other walks of life, people now rightly demand a similar experience with their healthcare,” explains Bupa’s Chief Architect Paul Schuster [2].
This shift in expectations has led insurers to rethink how they engage their members. Leading insurance providers are moving beyond basic member portals toward integrated health apps that put information, services, and support at members’ fingertips. For example, Australia’s largest private insurer, Medibank, recently announced a partnership to embed a personalised health engagement platform into its MyMedibank app. Medibank’s goal is to “better connect health services” and integrate them seamlessly with a member’s insurance benefits [3], giving customers greater access, choice, and control over their healthcare.
In short, insurers see that digital-first engagement is key to meeting customers where they are and keeping them satisfied in 2025 and beyond.
Preventive Care to Curb Costs and Improve Outcomes
Another driving force is the need to bend the cost curve through preventive care and early intervention. Health insurers have long borne the expense of avoidable hospitalisations and advanced disease treatments. Digital care platforms offer a way to keep patients healthier and catch issues sooner, which is a win-win for patients and payers.
One clear example is the expansion of telehealth services. By enabling virtual consults and remote monitoring, telehealth makes it easier for people to get care early without costly ER visits. Australian insurers like Medibank and nib have been at the forefront of offering virtual care to members, from video GP consultations to home monitoring for chronic conditions. The convenience of telehealth not only improves access for patients, but it also helps insurers manage costs by reducing unnecessary in-person visits and addressing health concerns before they escalate.
Insurers are increasingly leveraging consumer wearables and mobile apps to promote healthy behaviors and proactive health management.
Beyond remote doctor visits, insurers are tapping into wearables and health apps to encourage healthier lifestyles. Fitness trackers and smartphone apps give members real-time feedback on activity levels, sleep, heart rate, and more, empowering them to make healthier choices day-to-day. Insurers have rolled out programs that integrate with these devices to personalise support and even reward good habits.
For instance, nib’s “GreenPass” app syncs with wearable data to provide individualised wellness tips and incentives for hitting activity goals. Likewise, HCF’s My Health Guardian uses wearable data to offer one-on-one coaching for managing chronic conditions. By investing in these digital wellness initiatives, insurers aim to prevent serious health issues down the line, which ultimately reduces claims costs. As the 2024 Private Health Insurance Innovation Report noted, this kind of proactive engagement not only keeps members healthier but also lowers long-term expenditures for insurers.
Insurers are also harnessing data analytics and AI to bolster preventive care. Advanced algorithms can sift through mountains of health data to flag risk patterns and suggest early interventions. Bupa, for example, has deployed AI-driven health assessments to identify members at high risk for chronic diseases and then offer tailored preventive programs. By acting on predictive insights, say, reaching out to a member showing early signs of diabetes risk, insurers can initiate support (dieticians, coaching, digital therapeutics, etc.) that may avert costly complications later. This marks a shift from the traditional reactive model (paying claims for illnesses after they happen) to a more proactive, preventive approach. It’s a strategy that benefits everyone: members avoid suffering serious illness, and insurers avoid the hefty bills that come with it [4].
Policy and Competitive Pressures
It’s not just consumer pull and cost pressures pushing this transformation, policy changes and competitive dynamics are also at play. Around the world, governments and regulators are increasingly supportive of digital health solutions, which in turn encourages insurers to get on board. Nowhere is this clearer than in Germany, which has arguably the most progressive digital health policy in Europe. Germany’s Digital Healthcare Act (DiGA) established a framework for doctors to prescribe approved digital health apps (for anything from diabetes management to anxiety therapy), with costs reimbursed by statutory health insurers.
In other words, German insurers must pay for certain digital therapeutics just as they would for a medication. This bold move, launched in 2019, has accelerated the development and adoption of digital care tools by making them part of mainstream care. It also builds trust: if a health app is certified and reimbursed like any other treatment, patients and doctors are more likely to use it. Other countries are watching closely, and often, following Germany’s lead in legitimising digital care. As a result, insurers across Europe are preparing to incorporate more digital offerings into their coverage models to stay aligned with emerging standards and not be left behind [5].
In markets like Australia and the UK, the pressure is coming from a mix of public-sector initiatives and private competition. The Australian Digital Health Strategy (2023–2028) emphasises a consumer-centric digital infrastructure, envisioning a future where patients control their health information and access a suite of national digital health tools [6].
While Australia’s universal Medicare system handles a lot of health funding, private insurers operating there see the writing on the wall: supporting digital health is key to remaining relevant. Indeed, Australian insurers have been launching or partnering on digital platforms to differentiate their products.
We’ve already mentioned Medibank’s digital health expansion; similarly, Bupa (which operates in Australia, the UK, and beyond) has introduced its “Blua” digital health platform, offering members 24/7 virtual GP access, a symptom checker, preventative coaching, and more through a unified app [7]. Bupa explicitly ties this investment to staying competitive and delivering value, aiming to be “the world’s most customer-centric healthcare company” by providing instant, personalised digital services alongside traditional insurance.
In essence, if one insurer provides a slick digital experience that helps customers manage their health more easily, others must catch up or risk losing business. By 2025, digital engagement tools have become a key competitive battleground for insurers in many markets.
Integrating the Care Journey End-to-End
Perhaps the most transformative aspect of this shift is how insurers are redefining their role in the healthcare ecosystem.
Traditionally, insurers functioned mainly as payers, processing claims and financing care, while the “care” itself was left to providers. Now, in 2025, leading insurers see themselves as active partners in the care continuum, using digital platforms to connect the dots for their members. This means helping members navigate every step of their health journey, not just paying the bills. A 2025 industry outlook noted that many patient experiences (specialist referrals, follow-ups, mental health support, etc.) remain fragmented and disconnected from one another, even as other parts of healthcare digitise. Insurers are uniquely positioned to stitch together these disconnected care journeys because they touch all aspects of a patient’s healthcare financially. By beefing up their mobile apps and digital services, insurers are moving to fill these gaps.
For example, imagine a member using her insurer’s app to complete an online health assessment. Based on the results, the app suggests a follow-up with a specialist. Through an integrated platform, she could seamlessly book that specialist appointment, and the relevant data from her assessment would flow directly to the clinician ahead of time.
After the visit, suppose the doctor recommends a mental health program, the insurer’s platform could then guide the member to a partnered digital therapy service, monitor her progress, and loop that data back into her profile. All of this can happen within one cohesive digital environment provided by the insurer.
This is not a far-fetched scenario; it’s exactly the kind of “digital health operating system” insurers are striving to build in 2025, where every touchpoint (consultation, referral, service, follow-up) is connected [8]. The payoff is a smoother patient experience with fewer cracks to fall through, more timely interventions, and less duplication or delay. From the insurer’s perspective, it also means better oversight of a member’s journey and opportunities to guide them to high-value care options (which can improve outcomes and control costs).
Crucially, integrating the care journey requires robust data sharing and interoperability, areas that technology has finally matured enough to support at scale. Cloud-based platforms and APIs now enable different providers and services to plug into a member’s digital health “hub” securely.
The Australian government’s new Health Connect Australia initiative, for instance, is establishing a national health information exchange to ensure that a person’s health data “moves with them through the system, enabling seamless care” [9] across providers. Insurers are aligning with these efforts, because better data exchange makes their job easier too (think of the headaches of trying to get medical records for claims or care management). As integration becomes the norm, expect insurers to double down on digital platforms that serve as one-stop shops for their members’ health needs.
2025 and Beyond, A Turning Point
All the trends above converge on a clear conclusion: 2025 is a breakthrough year for health insurers embracing digital care platforms. What began as experimental pilot programs a few years ago have evolved into proven solutions that insurers are scaling across their member base.
Surveys of insurance executives show an overwhelming focus on tech adoption in 2025, with the vast majority of insurers upping their digital investments [10]. The consensus is that digital engagement is no longer just an add-on for insurers, it’s central to their strategy. A 2024 health innovation report put it bluntly: digital health is “not just a trend but a critical component of modern healthcare”, and to succeed, insurers must embrace solutions that prioritise accessibility, personalisation, and integration.
In practical terms, that means offering services like telehealth to improve access, leveraging wearables and apps to personalise wellness programs, using AI to deliver tailored health insights, supporting mental health via digital channels, and building integrated ecosystems that tie it all together. The insurers that get this right will see the benefits in customer loyalty, better health outcomes for their populations, and more efficient operations. Those that don’t risk being viewed as outdated or out-of-touch in a world where people manage so much of their lives on their phones.
PEP Health, An Example Platform for Insurers’ Digital Leap
As insurers look to accelerate their digital health offerings, they don’t have to start from scratch. Solutions like PEP Health have emerged as ready-made platforms to power patient-centric care programs. PEP Health (Patient Engagement Platform) is a cloud-based solution that pairs a patient-facing mobile app with a powerful clinical/admin dashboard.
Together, these components orchestrate personalised, just-in-time communications to patients, collect patient-generated health data, and give all stakeholders, patients, clinicians, and care managers, a real-time view of progress and outcomes. The result is higher patient activation, smoother workflows, richer data for decision-making, and demonstrable risk reduction (all outcomes insurers value). In essence, PEP provides the connective tissue for exactly the kinds of integrated, preventive, and patient-friendly care journeys discussed above.
From a patient’s perspective, PEP’s mobile app becomes a one-stop health companion. It delivers stage-specific educational content (articles, videos, guidance) tailored to the patient’s journey, sends medication and appointment reminders, and enables the patient to track symptoms or medications over time with visual charts. The app also keeps the patient’s care team connected, putting the contact information of doctors, nurses, or support services a tap away. This helps patients feel supported between visits and encourages them to stay engaged in self-care, which can lead to better outcomes and fewer costly interventions.
On the clinician/insurer side, the PEP dashboard offers a bird’s-eye view of each patient’s status and the ability to segment and automate communications based on clinical pathways. For example, an insurer could use the dashboard to enroll all new post-surgery patients into a 6-week rehab pathway on the app, which might push out daily recovery tips, exercise videos, and check-in forms to monitor their pain and mobility. If a patient reports a worrying symptom (say, a spike in pain or fever), the system can flag it for follow-up, allowing early intervention. This kind of data-driven triage and monitoring ensures that red flags are caught early rather than escalating silently. PEP’s library of validated patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and satisfaction surveys (PREMs) also allows insurers and providers to continuously collect quality-of-life data from patients as they go through care. By aggregating this feedback, insurers can spot broader trends and identify which programs are most effective.
Importantly, PEP Health was built with the strict security and privacy standards that healthcare demands. It carries ISO 27001 certification and aligns with GDPR and other data protection regulations, meaning insurers can trust that sensitive health information is handled safely. Features like in-app informed consent and controlled document delivery provide governance guardrails out of the box, reducing legal risk for organisations that deploy it. In other words, PEP was designed for the compliance-conscious world of health insurance and clinical care.
Finally, PEP’s flexibility makes it especially attractive in 2025’s environment. The platform can be configured (rather than extensively custom-developed) to match an organisation’s specific care pathways and communication plans. This configuration-driven approach lets an insurer launch tailored programs quickly, whether it’s a chronic disease management initiative, a post-hospital discharge follow-up scheme, or a wellness coaching program for members, without reinventing the wheel every time. By combining a consumer-grade mobile experience (intuitive and engaging for patients) with a clinician-guided rules engine and enterprise-grade security, PEP Health exemplifies the kind of solution that can help insurers hit the ground running in the digital care era.
Bottom Line: 2025 is shaping up to be the year health insurers fully embrace digital care platforms, and not a moment too soon. The pressures and opportunities, from consumer expectations to cost imperatives and supportive policies, have all aligned to make digital health a centerpiece of insurer strategy. Those insurers that lean into this change can become true healthcare partners for their members, delivering personalised, proactive care in ways that simply weren’t possible before. And with mature platforms like PEP Health available to power these efforts, making the leap to a digital-first approach has never been more achievable. In the end, the insurers that succeed in this transformation will likely see healthier members, lower costs, and stronger loyalty, outcomes worth striving for in 2025 and beyond.
Organisations: We’re offering a free 30-minute, no-obligation call for organisations interested in supercharging their patient communications and keeping their multidisciplinary care teams in the loop with patient progress. Check our calendar here for a free spot.
Doctors: Health professionals can use the PEP Health platform for free. Talk with us now to find out how.
References
[7]: https://www.bupa.com/impact/digital-healthcare/blua
[8]: https://www.dig-in.com/opinion/health-technology-issues-to-watch-in-2025
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