TAKEOFF
my aha! moment
Subtle Shifts & Massive Moves "
Every health moonshot begins with a single step, and every entrepreneurial journey begins with a story. We asked three founders to share a lightbulb moment.
Kevin Dedner
Kim Gandy, MD, PhD
Sas Ponnapalli
CEO & Co-founder, Henry Health
CEO & Founder, Play-it Health
CEO & Co-founder, Beam Health
“After I give presentations, I often get pulled aside by people who feel connected to our mission to bring mental health services to Black men. Even if they aren’t in our target demographic, they see themselves in what we are doing and ask, “What about me?” They ask about care for Black children, women and other people of color who experience stigma and bias in the healthcare system. I used to answer by saying, “We will expand one day.” But that answer wasn’t satisfactory. These questions caused us to reflect as a company. When we stepped back and thought more deeply about Black men, we were reminded that they are all part of families and communities that also need the support we provide. Our intention has always been to become a leader in providing culturally sensitive teletherapy. That started with Black men – and we will continue to center them in our work – but we have opened our community to welcome men and their families. We are providing both couples and adolescent therapy. This evolution dovetails with our emphasis on building a community that evokes a sense of belonging for members. We don’t just sell therapy – we invite members to join a wellness community that eliminates the barriers to accessing mental health services. It’s a subtle shift, but significant to the future of our business.”
“The initial ‘aha’ for Play-it Health came while I was practicing as a pediatric heart and transplant surgeon. In that field, we had a big problem. We could perform the Hail Mary of transplants, but still lose patients if they failed to follow their prescribed regimens. So we built a platform that made medication adherence easier and more enjoyable. Recently, I’ve had a secondary aha moment. We operate in a health system where incentives are often not aligned. Realizing the full implications of that has been eye-opening. It’s not just how good the idea is; there have to be market forces allowing it to thrive. I was recently in a meeting with more than 100 hospital CEOs. The room was asked how many hospitals had transitioned to value-based care. Only two raised their hands. The business models are there, but the forces needed to move the market at the highest levels are still developing. It’s a very tricky landscape and I’ve learned that this is an endurance sport. This validated the decision we made two years ago to not be dependent on value-based care. We decided to go after a strategy that would allow us to collect revenue on the front end while keeping our overall mission. I understand why it’s so hard; hospitals lose money when they transition to value-based care. But it will open up so much innovation when it happens.”
“Our health moonshot is to bring access to care across the entire population, reducing location as a barrier for high-quality care. I believe telemedicine is an absolutely essential way for us to do this. That conviction began at my first health startup, Plush Care, and has been confirmed again and again at Beam Health. One of our first customers was a truck driver who saw our ad while driving on a highway in rural Pennsylvania. He had a bad cough and wanted to talk to a doctor. He logged on and had a video visit with one of our providers. The doctor was concerned about the wheezing in his cough, and so he directed the driver to the nearest radiology practice for an X-ray. The radiologist sent the X-rays to the doctor on our platform, who called the truck driver for a follow-up video visit. He informed him that they’d found early signs of cancer in his chest. That trucker probably would not have seen a doctor otherwise. If we’re talking about increasing our life span, that kind of bridge between doctors and patients needs to be established.”
Henry Health is a Washington, DC–based teletherapy platform that specializes in providing culturally relevant mental health care to black men and their families.
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Issue 5
StartUp Health Magazine
Play-it Health’s SaaS platform is designed to help clinicians and patients improve medical adherence through increased engagement and remote patient monitoring.
Beam Health is a pay-as-you-scale telemedicine platform that is 100% free for providers and lets patients speak with a physician whenever and wherever they are.