The prepaid carrier continues to bring value to its subscribers in innovative ways.
Earlier in 2021, Boost Mobile introduced its Privacy Premium plan to the world showing an emphasis on privacy. The company, owned by DISH Wireless, also made it a point to speak on four main areas it was focusing on for the year to bring value to its subscribers including financial services, gambling, healthcare, and as previously mentioned, privacy. Now, with its collaboration with K Health, it seems that Boost Mobile is delivering on its healthcare focus and connecting more subscribers with healthcare professionals.
K Health is an app available for a $9 per month membership, or, $19 for a one-time virtual visit with a physician, and now free to Boost subscribers who are a part of the Unlimited Plus plan for only $7.99 per month. As the top medical app with over 4 million users, K Health provides its users with plenty of value including a free symptom checker, diagnosis, prescriptions, and treatment plans.
This is all going according to Boost Mobile’s Executive Vice President Stephen Stokols. The vision to find verticals that provide Boost subscribers with value continues to be executed with a growing desire to see what the future holds. Stokols said that “Boost has a massively underinsured population,” with as much as 40% of its customer base lacking enough health insurance. Now that the pandemic is accelerating many technological trends in healthcare such as telehealth, this is a perfect opportunity for Boost Mobile to deliver quality healthcare options for its customers and present value as a wireless carrier in a different way than the competition.
“We looked at it and said look, from a Boost phone you should be able to access a doctor, you should be able to diagnose what’s going on with you, your family, your kids…It’s a very compelling service for our users,” he said.
Choosing a healthcare partner wasn’t easy. Boost Mobile looked at many different options before settling on K Health as a partner. Okay, maybe “settling” isn’t the best word when you consider they picked this world leader in telehealth in part due to its advancements in artificial intelligence and the access to hundreds of doctors subscribers will receive.
We’ve seen other wireless brands provide value to their customers through bundles but most of them focus on entertainment. T-Mobile is offering Netflix and Verizon offering Disney+, yet, Boost Mobile’s bundles have focused on other important aspects that some customers may not always have as much access to. “For our users…it’s not about Netflix, it’s about basic health services, so we’re offering that free,” Stokols said. As K Health is usually limited in its direct-to-consumer approach, this bundle makes things a lot more accessible and easier for users.
The main focus for Boost Mobile is to retain and attract customers, however, there’s more than meets the eye here with the company looking to aim T-Mobile’s famous “Un-Carrier” approach. As DISH Wireless continues to build out a cloud-native 5G network across the United States, it is also balancing its responsibilities managing its MVNO. Currently, both T-Mobile and DISH Wireless have made headlines as they continue to butt heads over an impending CDMA network shutdown that could affect millions of Boost customers. “We want to take it one step further and sort of ‘un-carrier the Un-Carrier’ and really take it to next-generation services that really provide real value, not just add-on value,” said Stokols.
In the end, Boost Mobile is looking to the future. A proud disrupter, DISH Wireless continues to find ways to change the way we think of wireless in its short run entering the wireless industry during the merger of Sprint and T-Mobile where it acquired Boost Mobile. Prepaid mobile continues to be about texts, voice, and data, but Boost is looking to bring more to the table over time and dominate the prepaid market. “When we look ahead to the next 10 years, we’re trying to change that,” Stokols said. “We’re trying to have the carrier be a much more important part of the consumer value proposition.”
Source: Fierce Wireless