After leaving the doctor's practice, not all patients are on their own. Should they come up with questions or any distress, they can ask for guidance to a son in medical school, or a friend of a friend who's a surgeon or a nurse.
But the majority of patients don't have that extra guidance and emotional support in their network—and this is the gap that online care coordination service Karuna Health, a startup co-founded by recent graduates Joe Kahn from Harvard University and Yasyf Mohamedali from MIT, wants to address.
Co-based in Boston (the company's headquarters) and San Francisco, Karuna Health is building a network of "health guides" that patients can contact online to get help about health-related administrative tasks. Tasks vary from scheduling follow-up appointments to ordering drugs with a prescription, from knowing the side effects of a treatment plan to submitting insurance claims.
"Think about the set of things your father would do for you if he was a doctor and you were sick," Mohamedali said. "All the side things that he would do for you to help you along while not being the main doctor, those are the things that we do."
Launched in March 2018, the company raised a $1.2 million seed round from investors located on both the East and the West coast. Investors include First Round Capital (lead investor), SV Angel, Founder Collective and Rough Draft Ventures.
Mohamedali clarified repeatedly that Karuna does not treat patients. Also, it is not (only) an app or a website, but it puts patients in touch with real people.
The guides, Kahn added, have a range in experience: some of them are not-clinical and have a background in customer service, others are qualified or registered nurses. Guides work in teams managed by a person with clinical experience, and can be reached out via phone, SMS or video chat.
Currently, there are three people working as guides for Karuna, offering their services nationwide to around 50 patients. But the service isn't open to the general public yet: to use Karuna, patients will need to register on the website and answer a series a questions about their health and insurance plan.
While Karuna doesn't treat diseases, it said it can offer support overtime while patients cope with their condition. Some Karuna users are parents whose children have unmanaged Type I diabetes, or relatives of people diagnosed with late-stage cancers or Alzheimer's.
"In the longer term, we're likely to partner with organizations like employers and insurance plans to provide the service to their entire member population," Kahn said. "But, right now, it's a purely direct-to-consumer application. For a limited time, we're offering the service for free."
