M-TIBA

M-TIBA, the Kenyan brand for the Dutch-founded CarePay International, operates a health insurance technology platform designed to make healthcare more accessible in emerging markets. Established in 2015, the company was born from a collaboration between PharmAccess Foundation, Safaricom, and the Investment Fund for Health in Africa (IFHA). The founding vision came from experienced professionals in finance and healthcare, including Onno Schellekens, who previously led PharmAccess Group, and Kees van Lede. Their collective expertise in African healthcare financing, mobile technology, and private equity shaped the company's direction.

The company's core offering is a mobile-first platform that connects individual members, healthcare providers, and payers (such as insurers and government agencies) in real-time. This digital ecosystem replaces manual, paper-based processes, facilitating seamless data exchange and financial transactions. For individual users, M-TIBA functions as a mobile health wallet, accessible via a simple USSD code (*253#) on any mobile phone, not just smartphones. Members can save funds specifically for medical expenses, receive contributions from others, and manage their insurance benefits directly from their phones. The platform's integration with Safaricom's M-PESA allows for straightforward and secure payments for treatments and medication at thousands of partnered clinics and hospitals.

M-TIBA's business model serves multiple stakeholders. For insurers and other payers, the platform digitizes the entire claims journey, from member verification to payment processing. This automation drastically reduces administrative costs, minimizes fraud through enhanced transparency, and shortens claim approval times by as much as 96%. Healthcare providers benefit from faster payments, which improves their cash flow and allows them to focus on patient care. M-TIBA also offers a "Cash Advance" service in partnership with the Medical Credit Fund, providing working capital loans to healthcare facilities. The platform generates revenue by providing these streamlined administrative and data analytics services to its institutional clients.

Since its commercial launch in 2016, M-TIBA has registered over 4.8 million users and connected more than 5,000 healthcare providers in Kenya. The company has raised significant capital to fuel its growth, including a $45 million Series A round in 2019 and subsequent funding rounds to support international expansion into markets like Nigeria and the Middle East. The platform's impact has been recognized globally, earning a spot on Fortune's 'Change the World' list in 2020.

Keywords: health insurance platform, mobile health wallet, insurtech, healthcare financing, digital health, M-PESA integration, healthcare data analytics, claims processing automation, emerging markets healthcare, universal health coverage, patient management, provider payments, mobile payments, health savings, Africa healthcare, CarePay, PharmAccess, Safaricom, medical loans, telehealth services