Not to knock Mass General and its world-renowned reputation, but sometimes alternative medicine is just what the doctor ordered. The problem? Finding a reputable practitioner covered by your company's insurance. EthosWell is a Boston-based startup building a network of licensed holistic healthcare providers on which employers and their employees can count.
Sarah Merion, founder and CEO of EthosWell, conceived of the idea behind EthosWell while she was earning her MBA at Babson, and it was a “fluke thing that happened.”
“I was trying to find an acupuncturist,” she said. “I kept going to the doctor and nothing was getting better, so I wanted to try something different. When I went to look to see what was out there, I had a hard time finding a practitioner. I Googled ‘acupuncturist in Boston,’ and the results were varying degrees of websites.”
Eventually, she consulted her friends for a recommendation. The acupuncturist proved to be professional and skilled, which made Merion wonder why she couldn’t find this woman anywhere online.
“I started to get interested in her business,” Merion told me. “I asked her, and she said business wasn’t great because she had a hard time finding new clients, and new clients had a hard time finding her.”
Merion realized that Google, despite being people’s go-to solution for finding various services, isn’t the best place to look for a holistic medicine practitioner.
“The best person might not even come up in Google's search results,” she said. “Most of these professionals are sole practitioners, so they have to wear every single hat of a small business owner. How can they be expected to create this great website with fantastic SEO? They need help to get clients in the door.”
EthosWell is a network and directory of licensed practitioners in holistic medicine. The company will work with employers. It will help them provide and educate employees about complementary healthcare services available to them. This way, employers can take a progressive approach to benefits and ensure their employees are utilizing all that’s at their disposal in terms of healthcare.
The best person might not even come up in Google's search results
To start, EthosWell will feature acupuncturists, chiropractors and dieticians. Over time, Meron said she plans to expand the network to include nurse practitioners and naturopathic practitioners. She wants her startup to stick with practitioners recognized by the state to maintain safety and a standard of care throughout the network.
EthosWell will be free for practitioners to use. The venture will focus on revenue coming from the wellness benefits solution it provides to employers. At this time, the network will be B2B, so individual consumers whose employers aren't working with EthosWell will be unable to use it.
In March, the startup will start its pilot with Babson College and its employees. It has other employers in its prospective pipeline, as well.
Merion said she's bootstrapped EthosWell, with the help of a "tiny bit of angel funding." She also received a non-equity grant from Northeastern's IDEA Venture Accelerator in the form of gap funding.
