I guess that 4 people do not work for free. I understand that There's a huge potential for health care service providers, but how could this company get money out of this? This app is free for everyone. I do not connect the dots why one health care service provider should fund it. So perhaps you could elaborate it from this point of view?
I think there's some genuine confusion in this comment. Do you think that you are helping Americans get healthcare by... not working for healthcare companies?
Most of these startups are aimed at improving access via telemedicine, accessibility apps, price comparison apps, etc. I'm not sure what you're imagining.
Healthcare is complicated and expensive. This startup comes out with an app, a fingerprint scanner, and some compelling images, and now people are willing to hand over their money to some brand new company claiming they will bring universal healthcare to the masses.
Rather than develop a long-term set of healthcare provider alternatives, they're depending on selling a story and getting funding from people sensitive to heart-warming stories on the internet to "change the world". If any link in their public relations chain is broken, there goes the project.
I really like the idea. But copying a Sally Struthers late-80s TV commercial probably isn't going to solve healthcare.
I guess you just solved the US healthcare crisis with a single comment? Since US healthcare is literally free, there can't be huge numbers of medical bankrupcies (but there are) and there can't be insanely high levels of uninsured and underinsured people (but there are) and low-income families have nothing to worry about regarding access to care (but they do). Closer to the HN demographic, individuals who wish to start startups can freely do so without worrying how to get healtcare if they leave their FAANG job (but they can't).
The other possibility might be that it's not that simple.
When I was playing around with startup ideas, not employed by any large corporation, your so-called free healthcare was costing me well over $3K/month in the US (not including out of pocket expenses, of course).
How about a company that figures out how to provide _very_ affordable high-quality health care to large numbers of people, so they aren't dependent on an employer for their healthcare? That would allow many more people to become free-lancers, or to work for companies too small to get good health insurance prices. Such affordable healthcare might make it possible for a million more people to work for startups.
Such a company might not be feasible in the current regulatory climate, but some people say the same about Uber.
There are some startups in the health insurance space. What they seem to do is just make it easier to buy/cancel health insurance, all within an app. Some have been quite successful. Some are also trying to bundle in their own health care provision inside the app (like telehealth, virtual mental health, etc), so in a sense getting more people access to care.
It depends on what you think the goal of an app could be. If we can build an app that 1) makes people healthier or 2) actually replaces nurses/doctors/pharmacists, I do think you'll be better off with a better healthcare system.
Sure, but then isn't this just a "disability tax"? (I'm aware that the word disability is antiquated and not perfect here, but for the sake of being concise, this is what I wrote).
The need for this app is a problem. Insurance should cover the cost of treatment (and insurance should be affordable and available; for transparency: I'm pro medicare for all, here in the US).
Start ups have a bad habit of taking a systemic problem and trying to monetize a solution to it. In reality, the effort being put into this should be put, instead, toward making systemic changes that would make this app unneccessary.
I'm glad you recognized that your business model (VC-backed startup) wasn't compatible with your goals. For-profit health has a lot of the same issues, from top to bottom.
But it seem like you built something that did good for some users. I see you've open sourced it, but did you consider pivoting the business model instead, to a non-profit or delivering the app through therapists and health providers?
Therapists have the same incentives, and yet they seem to make a business of it. They are happy when clients don't need them any more.
I don't know what country you're talking about but in the United States, which is where I live, our biggest obstacle to healthcare is the fact that patients have to utilize insurance companies to receive healthcare and the insurance companies are incentivized to deny that healthcare so they can increase their profits. That's not a problem building some apps is going to solve.
1. Your target audience is difficult to reach (rich enough to pay $25, not rich enough to see a doctor, not willing to wait in line AND needing a visit to ER).
2. You're asking a lot from the hospitals (you collect patient data, you offer a no charge guarantee).
3. You're only getting $25 per successful transaction (needs to scale a lot).
On the other hand, you've already 'sold' your app as a white label. You have a reference and you can demonstrate that there's value for the hospitals.
Sell annual white-label licenses and you can built a very profitable company.
Resonates with me big time. I also bootstrapped a digital health startup called AnywhereMD with a team of physicians. At first it was a triage app that evolved into a messaging platform. The triage had a similar value proposition; get people to the optimal point of care and they will avoid unnecessary and costly ER visits. Self insured employers and accountable care organizations would reap the savings and therefore pay per employee or insured per month and drive people to use AnywhereMD before deciding where to seek care. We were bootstrapped and had a hard time convincing large companies that we were legitimate since we were so small. The biggest parallel I can see is that in healthcare, cost savings and better outcomes are obscured, hard to see, delayed etc.... So it’s not easy to prove value and then capture some of the value for your self.
Just because you don't see startups tackling these things doesn't mean it's not happening. Maybe you just need to look harder...
For your point #1, it's called a PHR (personal health record) and it's been done by many players including many startups, plus Google (who gave up because no one used it) and Microsoft (which still has one).
The problem is NOT the government. (In fact, find podcasts or video of the CTO of HHS Todd Park or the CTO of the USA Aneesh Chopra, and then tell me that it's the government that's holding back health entrepreneurs. Seriously, go google these guys.) The problem in healthcare is the lack of engagement from many consumer/patients plus a private industry reluctant to standardize. The Feds are trying to lead the way. If you're a vet, you can get access your medical records from the VA via their Blue Button initiative, and the government is encouraging other systems to follow (and some have).
Yesterday 1200 people attended a free Health Care Innovation Summit in DC with the heads of HHS and CMS (including Todd and Aneesh) on stage actively supporting healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship. I know because I was there as the CEO of a small health IT company that's solving some of those "big problems." Check out hcidc.org in the coming days for a video archive of the event.
New companies ARE changing healthcare. (That's actually the point of Obamacare!) Check out the many health startups from Blueprint Health, RockHealth, and HealthBox.
In other words go look before you assume that none of us are solving big problems. Not all of us make gamified, location-based, social networking buzzword bingo solutions for mobile.
Startups often being 2 college buddies with a bright idea - healthcare is a tricky one because it can require credentials and legal expertise in the field. It's a lot safer to build a delightful todo app.
Ah, no, I do mean to target the already employed people that want to create their own jobs but cannot take the risk due to having no other source of healthcare and no other way to pay for their children's education. I think there must be some group of people that would do their own startup but for needing healthcare.
Ah, no, I do mean to target the already employed people that want to create their own jobs but cannot take the risk due to having no other source of healthcare and no other way to pay for their children's education. I think there must be some group of people that would do their own startup but for needing healthcare.
Love the debate on this thread whether startups can't meaningfully tackle deep societal problems.
We are the working on building a free universal basic safety net for all: https://betterbank.app/
Essentially it's a checking account+insurance policy, bank with us and if you ever got hurt we will pay upto $5k in cash…use it for out-of-pocket expenses+ lost wages. It's free because we make money from debit interchange, targeted at either uninsured young folks who find obamacare to be too expensive or families with high deductibles.
Do we qualify as a profit minded start also doing good? If not, are there any other models out there
If the app was developed on time and works, thats fine. 60 million isn't that much in the grand scheme of government contracts. In a situation like this i would want a proven vendor, and pay premium over startups.
UK has spent 11 billion on a healthcare IT system and got nothing to show for it.
I guess that 4 people do not work for free. I understand that There's a huge potential for health care service providers, but how could this company get money out of this? This app is free for everyone. I do not connect the dots why one health care service provider should fund it. So perhaps you could elaborate it from this point of view?
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