The Openpay Group Ltd (ASX: OPY) share price will be on watch today after announcing that it was expanding into the hospitals sector.
What’s Openpay doing?
Openpay has announced that it is the first buy now, pay later (BNPL) business to enter into the hospital segment of the healthcare sector through a partnership with St John of God Health Care, one of Australia’s largest Catholic healthcare service providers. It has hospitals in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Initially, it’s a six-month trial at three hospitals that will allow patients to spread their hospital costs for elective surgery procedures across plans ranging from two to 12 months. At the conclusion of the trial, both parties will decide if a full rollout should proceed.
What’s the benefit of this?
St John of God Health Care’s chief operating officer of hospitals, Bryan Pyne, said that whilst the hospital group strongly supports people getting private health insurance, it recognises that some people choose not to and this is an alternative for those people. Mr Pyne said:
“There has always been a portfolio of patients who choose to self-fund their health care costs. Research conducted with with patients indicated an appetite for greater flexibility and availability of payment options, including the ability to smooth costs.”
The BNPL business said this was a natural extension of the operations that it has in areas such as optemetry, dentistry and audiology. It also demonstrates Openpay’s growing prominence in the healthcare vertical.
1st Group Ltd (ASX: 1st)
Openpay also said that it has seen excellent results from the initial rollout with MyHealth1st.com.au driving the relationship to full scale, ahead of schedule.
Nine months ago, Openpay announced it had signed a strategic partnership and revenue share agreement with the digital health group 1st Group. The Openpay share price has more than doubled since the end of May 2020.
This partnership is built around creating a positive user experience for healthcare experiences and their patients across every touchpoint of the patient experience from booking to payment. Combined, the offering helps patients find, book and pay for the care they need today with more time to pay.
Openpay was available at over 60 dental and allied health practices. It’ll move to full scale, ahead of schedule. Plans will be offered to thousands more healthcare practices as well as 1st Group’s veterinary platform, PayYeti. Both businesses will be investing in marketing activities.
Summary thoughts
The Openpay share price is a lot higher than it was a year ago – it could be one to watch if it keeps unlocking these sorts of partnerships.
Whilst business progress is good, I’m just not sure what the right price to pay for Openpay shares are. The BNPL sector is hard to value.
Before you consider Openpay, you can click on this link to ASX growth shares and find lots of ASX stock ideas and analysis.
