A California start-up, backed by $27 million in recent fundraising, is betting there’s big money in aging-in-place seniors.
Heal, an LA-based company, facilitates house calls by doctors to patients. TechCrunch describes the company:
The company has raised $26.9 million in Series A financing led by the Tull Investment Group, with participation from Breyer Capital, Hashtag One and Slow Ventures, along with Qualcomm’s executive chairman, Paul Jacobs, and the chief executive of Skydance Media, David Ellison.
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Using Heal, a patient can get a doctor coming to their door for the price of a co-pay or an all-inclusive, flat fee of $99. Doctors are available seven days a week from 8 in the morning to 8 at night — even on holidays.
“[The doctors] come with a very extensive kit of equipment,” says Heal founder and chief executive Nick Desai.
The company allows patients to request a consultation on-demand within a two-hour window, or schedule a visit in advance. Roughly 75% of the company’s repeat customers book their visits ahead of schedule. If booking ahead of time, patients can choose which doctor they want to use, but if the visit is on-demand, it’s the doctor that’s closest to a patient’s zip code.
Now, Heal is looking to expand to the rest of the country, including areas under-served by primary care providers, like Texas.
Additionally, the company is targeting a key demographic: seniors.
The founder talked to Home Health News:
Heal expects to begin accepting Medicare payments this November, impacting the company’s ability to provide on-demand health care to aging American seniors, Desai told HHCN.
“Serving seniors is our most important priority,” he said. “While house calls are revolutionary for all Americans, they are particularly valuable to seniors. Between 4 million and 8 million seniors have conditions that prevent them from making it to a doctor’s office in the first place. This means they either receive inadequate care or overuse the ER. Neither is good.”
All in all, a home-based physician can enable a senior to receive timely, first-rate medical care, as well as reconcile medications, “without the sometimes-insurmountable pain of getting to a doctor’s office,” Desai said.
