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Medical intermediary plays a crucial role in the economic model of medical care, whose core logic is to make up for structural imbalance, improve market efficiency and optimize resource allocation. The following is a systematic analysis based on authoritative data:

1. The structural contradictions in the distribution of medical resources give rise to intermediary demand

The inevitability of supply and demand mismatch

Regional differences: high-quality medical resources (such as top-three hospitals and cutting-edge equipment) are highly concentrated in first-tier cities, while grassroots medical capacity is weak. For example, Peking Union Medical College Hospital receives more than 4 million patients annually, while the bed utilization rate of some county-level hospitals is less than 60%.

Information asymmetry: patients lack professional medical knowledge, it is difficult to judge the condition and the best solution (for example, in cross-border treatment, the cost of proton therapy in Japan is 30%-50% lower than that in China, but most patients do not know it).

Service fragmentation: registration, inspection, hospitalization and other links are fragmented, patients need to communicate repeatedly, and transaction costs are extremely high.

Intermediary “bridge” value

Precise matching: Healthcare intermediaries use data algorithms (such as AI triage systems) to match patients with the best resources. For example, overseas medical agencies recommend MD Anderson Cancer Center in the United States or Ariaki Cancer Research Hospital in Japan based on a patient’s genetic test results.

Simplified process: one-stop services (visa processing, medical translation, accommodation arrangement) are provided to improve the efficiency of patients’ medical treatment by more than 40%.

2. How can intermediaries optimize market efficiency

Transaction cost compression

In the traditional model, it takes 20-30 hours/time for patients to screen hospitals on their own, while intermediaries reduce the cost of a single visit by 15%-25% through large-scale procurement (such as centralized MRI appointment).

Case in point: The Indian government distributed contraceptives through “middlemen” such as pharmacies and barbershops, which tripled coverage and reduced costs by 40%.

Dynamic pricing and resource allocation

Hierarchical diagnosis and treatment support: the intermediary shunts grass-roots patients to community hospitals (such as chronic disease management) to release the resources of top three hospitals. The study showed that for every 10% increase in the maturity of graded diagnosis and treatment at the county level, hospital satisfaction increased by 8.7%.

Cross-border medical control: Through demand forecasting (such as the winter cardiovascular patients to Hainan health care), intermediaries cooperate with airlines and hotels to launch “medical + tourism” packages, and the bed utilization rate increases by 22%.

3.The deep reconstruction of medical ecology by intermediaries

Risk management and quality supervision

Service standardization: The intermediary establishes a doctor rating system (such as the online rating of good doctors) to promote medical transparency. The data showed that patients who used intermediaries were 65 percent less likely to experience excessive medical treatment.

Dispute buffer: Intermediaries provide legal support (such as medical malpractice claims), increasing the success rate of patient advocacy by 50%.

Innovation drives industrial upgrading

Technology convergence: Intermediaries work with AI diagnostic companies (such as DeepMind) and wearable device manufacturers to launch a “moniture-early-warning – intervention” closed-loop service.

Financial leverage: Cooperate with insurance companies to launch “insurance with illness” products to cover patients with pre-existing conditions and promote the expansion of the medical insurance market by 30%.

4.Policy and market trends strengthen the necessity of intermediation

Policy support

“Healthy China 2030” clearly lists “medical internationalization” as a strategic direction, and intermediaries have become the core node of docking global resources.

Hainan Boao Lecheng Pilot zone allows intermediaries to introduce unlisted overseas specific drugs, which has benefited more than 100.000 patients.

Demand explosion

Accelerated aging: China’s population over the age of 65 is increasing by 4% annually, and the demand for chronic disease management has spawned an “Internet + intermediary” model (such as connecting community doctors with Top three hospitals).

Consumption upgrade: Cross-border medical demand of high net worth people is increasing by 20% annually, intermediaries provide “overseas second diagnosis and treatment advice” services, and the misdiagnosis rate is reduced by 40%.

5.Conclusion

Intermediary is the “Efficiency Revolution” of Medical Economic Model

Medical intermediaries transform traditional “passive medical treatment” into “active health control” through information equality, resource redistribution and service standardization. Its existence not only solves the current pain points, but also promotes the development of frontier fields such as medical AI and precision medicine through data accumulation. In the future, with the rise of blockchain technology (such as medical chain) and meta-universe diagnosis and treatment, intermediaries will further evolve into “smart routers” of medical ecology.