Is the occupational health market “boring”? Not for the founder of Welbe

Occupational health, by definition, is a branch of medicine and also a mandatory sector in companies, acting to prevent work-related problems and diseases. It is in this environment that Welbe, Mexican Healthtech created by the Brazilian entrepreneur Eduardo Medeiros, began to act and prosper.

Invested by Green Rock in 2022, Welbe aims to revolutionize the Mexican health ecosystem, being the first to integrate laboratories, doctors, companies and users, unifying health information. In an exclusive interview, Eduardo Medeiros talks about Welbe's trajectory, the opportunity for occupational health in Mexico, and how he sees the peculiarities of the Brazilian market.

With over 16 years of experience in the digital market, Eduardo says that, despite training in Chemical and Environmental Engineering, he has never worked in the area. The entrepreneur shares that he was born and grew up in the startup market. After many years he moved to the corporate environment, already in Mexico, where he has lived for a decade.

During this period in the country, Eduardo shares that he always saw some latent demands: “Of the 10 years that I have been in Mexico, 8 years have been looking at and experiencing these local health needs, in terms of benefits, employees, etc. Health insurance has a very high share. So it was always something that bothered me, but I hadn't looked at it as a business opportunity yet.”

The turning point that led him to see the market opportunity currently being explored by Welbe came with the beginning of the pandemic, while Eduardo was working in a large Mexican conglomerate. The company had multi-businesses that had to adapt to the reality of the pandemic. However, after a few months, there was a need to reopen operations, which led to a latent question: how to identify those collaborators who were among the risk groups indicated by the WHO.

“There wasn't a Dashboard to give us some support as to how many employees were part of the risk groups. In a company distributed nationally, we had no idea. So I did a questionnaire with the collaborators. To my surprise, 94% of the population said they were in these groups, because clearly everyone was panicking about the pandemic,” says Eduardo.

In this sense, Eduardo affirms that they understood that they would need to develop a check-up and capture this data. Based on some cutbacks such as age and groups of employees who lived with the elderly, among other points, the company reached a total of 13,000 lives, of which only 4% were actually part of the risk groups. Capturing this information raised yet another problem: how to compile all those PDF pages into data? “We had to put in occupational doctors to analyze and catalog this by hand. When I looked at this situation, within my digitalization perspective, I saw the opportunity,” she says.

Eduardo also states that there is a lot of money surrounding occupational health, but it is poorly distributed. It is worth noting that companies are required to spend this money on periodic, admission and dismissal exams. “Depending on the position, the amounts spent exceed 2 thousand dollars a year. On average, we spend more than 150 dollars per employee per year between exams, reports, mental health reports and others. In the case of a welder, for example, the doctor needs to see the retinal detachment, the worker's lung, if he has no blood problems, etc.”

However, Eduardo indicates that this expense is poorly optimized. “That's when I thought: we're going to create an ecosystem that helps this occupational doctor with software and we're going to integrate everything; but, in addition, we're going to take this money from the 'mandatory annual examinations' and put this as a benefit. It's the same money that was already spent, but reworked and providing cost savings in the end,” explains the entrepreneur.

Today, Welbe is consolidated in the market as a platform where participating organizations have access to a range of services. They range from check-ups, laboratory tests, telemedicine services, consultations, and others, to guarantee access to preventive health for workers in Mexico. Eduardo also comments that “occupational health is seen as a business 'boring' by many, but we are providing that 'saving costs' for the company's HR and we generated benefits for those who had nothing”.

The Mexican market and health data as an opportunity

Regarding the Mexican market, the founder of Welbe highlights some points that reveal the country's potential: Mexico has the second largest industrialization in Latin America; the Mexican market has an increasing demand for occupational health; and, in addition, multinational companies arrive with ESG requirements, which Welbe responds well, since the company generates benefits and social impact, helping to alleviate part of the demand on the government.

Eduardo highlights another point that Healthtech manages to take advantage of: the accumulation of data, which become valuable information for other markets. According to the entrepreneur, the Mexican insurance market, for example, has not grown for more than 15 years, which is due to the fact that it only serves a more affluent population. “This market only serves the top of the pyramid. It's like a luxury market, the only way for it to grow is to raise the price.”

However, Eduardo indicates that, with a consistent database, this could change. “We were able to provide visibility for this market to adhere to a new layer. We were able to prove that he doesn't have to charge so much and that there won't be an explosion of claims, because we have the health data of that employee. There may be a gain in this market, so we are negotiating with several insurance companies,” she says.

The Latin American market and the case of Brazil

As for the rest of Latin America, Eduardo points out that “occupational pain is similar from here in Mexico to Uruguay”. According to the entrepreneur, on average, Latin American countries have 37 occupational health regulations and operate in a similar way — insurance with co-participation, similar regulations, inefficient public health, low accessibility.

In this sense, he believes that the product offered by Welbe is permeable in all these markets as a whole, but emphasizes that the company's main focus is still on Mexico for at least the next three years. Finally, he points out that, among the similarities between countries, Brazil is the most unique case.

“Occupational health is also seen as something 'boring' in Brazil because it is a very bleeding market, with a low margin. In Brazil, companies normally offer health plans, but this market is changing and starting to include the famous co-participation, as is the case in Mexico. What will happen after the plans apply co-participation? Their market will dry up. But there seems to be a preference for this reduction, in order to reduce the number of accidents and to make a greater gain. However, what the Brazilian market has not realized is that if it invests in occupational health as a “family doctor”, it reduces the number of accidents at the source. Our vision for the Brazilian market is to take this concept, so we think this is the most difficult market”.