Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- Openpay (OPY) is taking its buy now, pay later service to the hospital segment through a partnership with St John of God Health Care
- A six-month initial launch has already begun, allowing patients to spread hospital costs across plans ranging from two to 12 months
- The participating hospitals include St John of God Murdoch and Mt Lawley Hospitals in Perth and St John of God Berwick Hospital in south-east Melbourne
- Separately, a partnership with 1st Group will move to full scale, three months ahead of schedule, following “excellent” results from the initial launch period
- Openpay is down 1.52 per cent to $2.60 per share
Openpay (OPY) is taking its buy now, pay later service to the hospital segment through a partnership with St John of God Health Care.
A six-month initial launch has already started at three hospitals: St John of God Murdoch and Mt Lawley Hospitals in Perth and St John of God Berwick Hospital in southeast Melbourne.
Under the partnership, patients will be able to spread their hospital costs for elective surgery procedures across plans ranging from two to 12 months.
Once the trial period is completed, Openpay and St John of God Health Care will determine whether or not a full rollout should proceed.
“There has always been a portion of patients who choose to self-fund their health care costs,” said Bryan Pyne, Chief Operating Officer at St John of God Health Care.
“Research conducted with these patients indicated an appetite for greater flexibility and availability of payment options, including the ability to smooth costs,” he added.
The partnership with St John of God Health Care follows a similar one with 1st Group (1ST), which was announced in June last year.
Following “excellent results” from the initial launch period, the partnership will move to full scale, roughly three months ahead of schedule. As part of this next phase, Openpay and 1st Group will offer plans to thousands more healthcare practices across the Openpay and 1st Group networks.
This integration will also be extended to 1st Group’s veterinary platform, PetYeti.
“We’ve seen excellent results from our initial work — patients have had the opportunity to spread payments across a longer term for important services and procedures, and practices have attracted more patients,” said Michael Eidel, CEO of Openpay.
“This partnership also highlights a core part of our strategy — the power of working with platform owners and aggregators to drive customer acquisition via a one-to-many approach,” he continued.
Openpay is down 1.52 per cent to $2.60 per share at 5:20 pm AEDT.
