Alexi Alizadeh experienced a stroke in her early 20s that left her nearly unable to pick up the phone, let alone collect medical documents for follow-up appointments. Later on, after her recovery, she decided there must be a better way to connect patients to their health care providers.
“I became a mom a year and a half ago and the process of finding a provider that I am comfortable enough with to care for me during my pregnancy and my daughter after her birth was just a painstakingly complex process and very inefficient. I decided I wanted to create something to simplify it,” she told NTX Inno. “Even today… the cracks in our health care system are really apparent to patients like me who often go unheard and struggle to seek good care.”
So Alizadeh created her own solution: Adviise, a location-based platform that allows patients to compare providers and book appointments. She describes it as like the “Expedia for health care.” And with the recent pandemic, recently launched Adviise is helping patients stay connected to their care providers in a time when health care is increasingly conducted vitually.
“We need more patient-centric tools that provide access to quality, appropriate care,” Alizadeh said. “It’s a problem we’re still living with unfortunately and I don’t see why we are. We’re really creating a centralized location where any patient in the country can see a medical provider based on location, compare reviews, availabilities, see their training… and then they can book in real-time without having to call.”
Based out of Dallas and New York, Adviise launched in September of last year and has already raised $500,000 in funding from an outside investor. In addition to its seven-member team, Adviise also counts some high profile names on its board, including Respawn Entertainment (the company responsible for the Call of Duty franchise) co-founder and CEO Vince Zampella, Senior Policy Advisor to the State of West Virginia Bray Cary, and For Goodness Sake research scientist Christiana von Hippel.
Through Adviise’s platform, patients can review health care providers, compare rates and coverage, as well as book appointments. And though Alizadeh said she sees Adviise as a patient-centric platform, there are benefits to providers as well. The startup has providers on its platform from most states in the U.S. across disciplines like dentistry, physicians, counselors and physical therapists. When Adviise partners with a provider, they are able to control their profile, keeping plan coverage and appointment info up-to-date, helping them streamline front office operations and stay more efficient.
“We continue to really become accustomed to being able to crosscheck pricing with availability and reputation among most industries… allowing consumers to make the best decisions to fit their needs, and that has not existed at all for health care,” she said. “We work hard to make the patient’s experience as seamless as possible.”
One of the newest features on Adviise’s platform, which was something the team hadn’t planned to roll out until June of next year, is a telemedicine service. Alizadeh said the accelerated launch was due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused many to delay or forego treatments for certain things over fears of catching the virus in a doctor’s waiting room. It also is planning to roll out some other features like HIPAA-compliant messaging and pre-filled registration forms to help cut down on the time someone would spend waiting to see a health care provider.
Even after the pandemic is over and things begin to settle into a new normal, Alizadeh said she sees telemedicine becoming commonplace. She added that even now, it can provide benefits by allowing people to see specialists outside of their geographic area, especially in rural areas, where finding specialists can sometimes be difficult.
“When Covid-19 hit, we really saw an accelerated adoption of this practice and everybody was all of the sudden seeing each other virtually,” she said. “We are helping people take charge of their health even in this kind of uncertain time. We are trying to empower them with information. We want to make sure they are taking care of their health, we want to make sure that they are still able to see their providers and get the care that they need.”
In addition to rolling out new features, as Adviise eyes the future, it is looking to grow the number of health care providers it works with. Its main focus will be on larger health care systems, which Alizadeh said have different needs and pain points than smaller offices. She also said she see Dallas as uniquely positioned for its platform, not only because of the amount of local talent in both tech and medicine but also because of the number of transplants moving to the region, who – as she has experienced – may struggle to find new health care providers in a new city.
“I hope to make something the norm that wasn’t before… so that people get care in a timely fashion and they’re able to do everything automated online,” Alizadeh said.
