Jim Rickards, MD, MBAStart-up & health insurance payer experience.
Bio

Chief Medical Officer - Oregon Health Authority
Director Population Health - MODA Health Plans
Board Certified Radiologist
Healthcare Focused MBA
Co-Founder - Dermio Teledermatology
Consultant - Spry Health


Recent Answers


Out of Pocket Cash Pay Products & Services - You can consider offering products and services patients pay for out of pocket or can use an HSA/FSA account for.

Products - This can include dental care products, but also non-dental related products. You can check for eligible covered products on most HSA/FSA websites. This may require a small retail presence in your office. Alternatively, you can display some products and allow for online purchase whereby you link to the Amazon purchase option and act as an affiliate collecting a commission.

Services - Consider offering vaccines, botox, cosmetic services or think outside the box and offer pain management for headaches or chronic pain issues. Consider partnering with an online platform to offer virtual care as well. Lab testing is also something to consider, this is big in the naturopathic and chiropractic spaces. Look to see what these providers offer that patients pay for out of pocket and consider it for your clinic.

A strategic framework organizing these options then prioritizing them based on your interest, market and teams capabilities would be beneficial to help you make a decision.

Happy to speak more if you like,
Jim


Sounds like you need a framework for segmenting the healthcare market, eg do you wan to target the delivery system, payers, government entities, vendors, direct to consumer, risk bearing entities, etc. Is this a non-emergency transportation service? Does this address social determinants of health (SDOH)? Depending on these answers and the product there are various customers. Happy to discuss more if you like.


Medical devices in general fall into the category of durable medical equipment (DME). Typically national, regional or even local vendors serve as the distributors of DME to the delivery system, ie hospitals, clinics, ASCs, etc. It is these DME vendors that hold the relationship with the delivery system and bill any fees. Manufacturers do hold direct relationships as well, but typically a vendor is in the middle and facilitate billing a well as collection from health insurance payers. Happy to discuss more if you like given my health insurance background.


Some items to consider and would help me answer are:
- Are you selling a product, such as a device they use for a procedure, service such as a scheduling service or a piece of technology such as an automated appoint reminder system?
- Can they bill insurance or the patient for what you sell them? This depends on what you are selling.
- Are they an independent practice, employed by a company such as Kaiser or members in a DCO (dental care organization) such as Delta Dental?
- What dental specialties are you aiming at (there are 10) or are you selling to general dentists?
- Are you targeting dental practices working with a specific population such as Medicaid or pediatrics.
- Are you willing to attend national conferences and set- up a booth?
-Can you give talks at conferences?

Happy to have a conversation with you on this, I help lead medical-dental integration efforts with a large health plan and have a deep understanding of how dental practices operate, obtain patients and bill for services.

Thanks,
Jim


Hello, I'm a physician and work as chief medical officer for a health plan in the US. I'd be interested in investing myself, but also in helping you with the idea. Happy to connect to discuss.


Hi, I'm a physician, a radiologist, who uses AI daily in practice and would be happy to discuss how it helps provide better care and make more accurate timely diagnosis.


Fundrx.comis a great place to start. They are focused on health care startups. If you'd like an introduction let me know.

Alumni venture group is another option. They are not healthcare focused, but do invest in healthcare.

Happy to schedule a call to discuss more and give some additional advice.


Specialty Segmentation: I would ask what type of "doctors" are you marketing to? MD, DO or perhaps PA's, NP's or ND's? Also are you looking to market to primary care, specialty, employed, private practice? Rural or Urban? Hospital-based or community outpatient based? Depending on your target market there are a variety of affinity groups you could then look to, all of which have various digital channels. An example would be radiologist (physicians who interpret medical imaging exam). They have many online forums they use frequently such as Auntminnie.com. The site has advertising, industry articles, and blogs. This might be the right place to target radiologists. Happy to have a conversation to help you think more about segmenting and targeting.


I'd first define what aspect of medical and dental you want to target. Medical is a HUGE field. Are you looking at the delivery system side, ie physicians, hospitals, clinics or the payer side, ie insurance companies. Or are you looking at pharmacy, durable medical equipment, telemedicine, etc. Do you se what I'm getting at, medicine or healthcare is an enormous field. If you define your nice I think it will help clarify your approach and goals. Happy to talk more if you'd like.


Act as a customer - I work on the medical insurance side and frequently interface with large insurance broker and consultant groups trying to gain visibility of our product so they sell it. Some of the larger brokers are Mercer and WTW. Have you considered working for one of them for a while to see how they generate leads? It seems most of them have a formulaic approach for generating leads and work closely with insurance companies to ensure the product they sell is what employers want. You could also act as if you are a customer trying to buy insurance and see how existing brokers connect with you, ie online, networking, conferences.


Contact on Clarity

$ 1.67/ min

4.96 Rating
Schedule a Call

Send Message

Stats

46

Answers

46

Calls


Access Startup Experts

Connect with over 20,000 Startup Experts to answer your questions.

Learn More

Copyright © 2024 Startups.com LLC. All rights reserved.