For years, telemedicine services have made inroads with consumers and healthcare systems. For birth control, patients can access Nurx. For therapy, they can use Talkspace to connect with a therapist. Now, a new startup wants to connect patients abroad with U.S. specialists.
Paire Health, a startup that connects patients with board-certified U.S. specialists to get second opinions, won $35,000 in funding earlier this month at the University of Chicago’s Global New Venture Challenge. Though the startup has also raised “a sizeable amount” for its seed round, the GNVC funding will allow the company to bring on engineers and help the company test its service in Asia, said Daniel Farnon, Paire Health’s CEO. Since its founding in February 2018, the company has brought on 11 team members, including the company’s CMO Paul Chan, who’s also a retina specialist with telemedicine expertise.
The web and app-based, HIPPA-compliant platform allows patients to upload their medical records so that a specialist can review them and offer an assessment, Farnon said. The platform uses algorithms to analyze the information provided, and, if necessary, a case nurse will coordinate with the patients’ previous healthcare providers to obtain any missing documentation. The case nurse will then send the specialist’s assessment to the patient.
“From that perspective, they don’t have to mess around and say, ‘Hey, I still need this…,’” Farnon said. “It’s an efficient review of documents and scans, and images and records… What’s more, for the specialist, they can work from anywhere. ”
The company tentatively has set the price at $500 to $2,000 per use depending on the service, said Curtis Ellergodt, Paire Health’s COO. Farnon added that this price point is less than what patients in its target markets currently spend on healthcare costs.
The startup wants to start introducing its platform in Asia, specifically Indonesia, and expand to Middle Eastern and African countries, Farnon said. The company is reaching out to private healthcare providers so that they can, through the providers, access the patients, he said.
As the company enters new markets, it aims to understand why individuals are seeking second opinions and tailor its platform to each distinct culture, then use that discovery and customization process to scale to other markets, Farnon said.
The goal of bringing more accessible healthcare information to underserved populations hits close to home for Ellergodt and Farnon. Farnon said he lost an uncle in the U.K. due to a misdiagnosis. Ellergodt tested the platform on a family member who had been fighting cancer; the specialist assigned to review her records raised questions regarding the initial assessment. As a result, his relative is receiving care at another health system.
“Let’s put the power back in the patient’s hands,” Farnon said. “It’s simple, and we intend to keep it simple.”
