One key question that arises in developing a global digital health model is how to incorporate the transfer of digital value, i.e. how do we facilitate the use of digital currencies as a payment mechanism? This is a critical consideration because if digital health is to achieve one thing, it will be to connect doctors and patients in remote areas. And of course, that means we're going to have to rethink how we pay each other. Given this scenario, we can fully expect to see a significant shift in the payment model towards digital currencies along with a decentralization structure like blockchain.
A successful healthcare currency and payment system will need to serve billions of people around the world. Rather than being a pure store of value like Bitcoin, any global healthcare currency will need to become more of a tool. Like air and water, food and education, health is a necessity. Ultimately, this means that we will see a much greater and more organic connection between the value of this token and its actual utility in the market. For this global health currency to make sense and be successful, it must now meet certain criteria that make it different and stronger than the current payment mechanisms in place today. To that end, there are a number of core components that are critical to any healthcare-focused digital currency.
First, it must facilitate delegated payments. Patients need access to a token that can be spent on approved services at an approved set of vendors or healthcare providers such as doctors or chiropractors. This token must be portable not only between patients and approved healthcare providers in the network but also between all patients in the network. This ability to conduct peer-to-peer transfers within the network and with third-party healthcare providers is critical to ensuring the successful global adoption of digital health.
The second essential component of a digital currency for healthcare is that it must be auditable. Fortunately, the nature of blockchain already lends itself to this, as one can easily view transactions in the ledger. The features we already see in blockchain, such as transparency and decentralization, will need to be adapted to payments. This will create purpose-built blockchains that will allow specific parties to provide care and receive payments. These blockchains will primarily take the form of permissioned networks linked to digital currencies.
Third, a healthcare-focused digital currency must be able to maintain a stable value at certain points in its existence. It is essential that service providers can be confident that they are receiving the correct value for the service they have provided and that this value will not decrease. It is possible that this requirement will lead to the development of tokens whose value on the open market fluctuates only to stabilize at the point of payment. However, this stability is a necessary part of any system exchange and needs to be addressed.
Another crucial factor that allows digital currency in healthcare to gain global acceptance is the ease of accessibility. The acquisition should not require users to have specific accounts with specific trading platforms or specific tokens to trade on a specific platform and so on. It needs to be much, much easier to access and completely bypass the need to learn or participate in specific cryptocurrency entry and exit points. This is a problem that needs to be assessed from the application layer – how can we make it easy for anyone to access the digital currency market to use their purchase for healthcare payments on an ongoing basis? This is a question that applies to the entire cryptocurrency space more generally.
Last but not least, it is necessary from a commercial point of view that the cost of accepting this currency as a means of payment should be a fixed fee as far as possible. For example, if you have a scenario where businesses don't know what the overhead is when they accept payment through this digital currency, they simply won't accept it. Instead, they will revert to traditional payment mechanisms such as credit cards based on fiat currencies, where they already know what the overhead will be. From the perspective of the service provider, the costs of handling this currency must be significantly more predictable.
Once all these issues are resolved, I believe we will see rapid adoption of a global healthcare digital currency. There is a real business need and we in the blockchain and digital currency space are working hard to deliver the solutions the market needs.
Change is inevitable. Right now, healthcare is going through a demographic shift—an aging population, the globalization of the workforce, and the impact of the coronavirus—all leading to a need to rebalance the demand and supply of healthcare. These forces are moving toward healthcare becoming digital, decentralized, and moving to a more peer-to-peer payment model, where control of price, privacy, and consent clearly shifts from the enterprise to the consumer. Digital currency plays a major role in this shift. But even more important is the role that digital currency will play at the very center of the new decentralized healthcare ecosystem.
