BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

How One Woman Is Reducing Healthcare Costs And Improving Quality

Following
This article is more than 6 years old.

Could visiting your doctor be a thing of the past? If Renee Dua, chief medical officer at Heal, has her way, it will.

Christina Gandolfo

Doctor visits will be replaced by doctor house calls. Hey, wasn’t that how it was done in yesteryear? It turns out that this type of medicine is cheaper and more effective.

Heal saw its first patient in February, 2015. Since then, the company calculates that its first 40,000 patient visits have driven more than $21 million in cost savings, diagnosed 1,100 previously unknown issues and reduced unnecessary trips to the ER by 62%. A surprising 71% of ER visits are avoidable and unnecessary, according to Truven Health Analytics. In addition, Heal reduced unnecessary prescriptions, tests and referrals to specialists. Other research finds that house calls can reduce hospitalization rates.  

"House calls are more than convenient, they're better medicine — for the patient and the doctor,” said Dua.  Not quite as fast as hailing a car through Uber or Lyft — doctors typically arrive within two hours, between 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week — but far better than waiting in an emergency room as Dua and her husband did when their infant son had a rash. By the time the doctor saw the baby, the rash had cleared up.

“There’s got to be a better way. Why can’t a doctor come to my home and see my family where we’re most comfortable?” Dua asked her husband. Dua is a primary care physician and her husband, Nick Desai, is a serial technology entrepreneur. He got to work building the first version of the app.

Booking an appointment with Heal is easy: Call, go to its website or use its app. Heal is in-network with most insurance plans in California (it’s available throughout the greater Los Angeles area, Orange County, the San Francisco Bay area and San Diego), and will soon accept insurance from providers in the D.C. and Northern Virginia areas. If you don’t have insurance, you pay $99. That’s  significantly less than ER visits and the fee charged by many doctors for office visits.

The “medical bag” of a Heal doctor includes the latest high-tech health tools, enabling them to diagnose bronchitis, give flu shots, stitch up nasty cuts and write prescriptions.

The company’s biggest challenge is changing the mindset of consumers, doctors and insurers who think that the only way do medicine is the way it was done in the recent past.

“Of course, the best advertising we do is by word of mouth,” said Dua. Next best is the media talking about Heal. The media has more credibility in the public’s mind than advertising and it's less expensive. Public relations lays a foundation of credibility. You have to earn being covered by the media. You can’t just pay your way.

The downside of relying on the media is that you can’t control what is said about your service. You can’t ask for the order. With advertising, you control the message. For scrappy startups, money is often in short supply, which makes PR more cost efficient than advertising.

Heal also used social media and other grassroots marketing, Dua said. The Heal network of doctors participate in local events, such as walks to raise awareness about specific diseases and the importance of early detection. She’s a kidney specialist and participates in the kidney’s associations walks.

Ultimately, she said, “We want to build a community of Heal users that share their experiences and get the most comprehensible care possible.” Heal management also educates politicians on lower cost, more effective ways of ensuring the health of the country.

In particular, “doctors are a risk-averse group,” said Dua. This service provides a way to practice medicine in the way they would like — spending time with the consumer and their family doing comprehensive checkup as well as emergency visits.

How can you update the past by using technology and make the future better?

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website