As the elderly population in America continues to grow, some seniors may find it challenging to manage their health care — especially setting up various doctor appointments, getting to those appointments and remembering to take several medications.
Enter Renee, a personal concierge that enables seniors to take care of all of these things in one place. It launched this week and it’s accessed through a web browser, to start.
Renee is a team effort by husband-and-wife Nick Desai and Renee Dua. They launched the service after raising more than $8 million in seed funding. Some of the investors include L.A.-based Mucker Capital, L.A.-based Fika Ventures and the AARP. Renee plans to use the funds for various endeavors, including building out its product and engineering teams.
The overarching goal of Renee is to make health care management easy. This has been a constant goal for the couple over the years. They formerly created Heal, which provides in-home primary care, mainly to seniors on Medicare.
Renee’s target demographic is aging Americans with more than two chronic conditions.
The global health care virtual assistants market size was $1.3 billion in 2021. And, it's expected to grow to $ 8.1 billion by 2030.
How it works
Renee acts as a personal assistant would, taking care of “the most common cumbersome, routine tasks, that have the most benefit,” Desai said.
This includes getting prescriptions refilled, as well as calling doctors' offices and waiting on hold. Renee uses artificial intelligence, but also provides human customer support for certain things, including an initial evaluation and mental health services.
“What any human wants is the comfort of knowing that someone is there, and then they’re more confident to use a digital experience,” Desai told L.A. Inno. “They’re never stuck.”
The initial evaluation includes a comprehensive health assessment via a video call. This way, Renee can “learn everything about you,” Desai said.
This first session also serves as a “bridge of trust” so those who use Renee feel comfortable disclosing their private health information.
A Renee member would then give the company the names and phone numbers of all their doctors, scan the bottles of all their prescription drugs and let the concierge know how often they’re supposed to take them.
Renee then uses AI to set up doctor appointments at the preferred time of day. And, after Renee facilitates the delivery of medications, it then starts texting daily reminders to take them. It’s interactive, so a user would click on a box that either says “Taking” or “Skipped.”
“If patients take their medications correctly, they will achieve better health, especially for chronic conditions,” Desai said.
Desai said that Renee is a HIPAA-compliant service that takes security of patient information as a “serious priority.”
Signing up for Renee costs $24.99 per month. For the rest of the year, the company is waiving the $99.99 activation fee. At this time, there is no extra charge for medication delivery.
Will seniors use the app?
The Renee co-founders hope that seniors will feel comfortable enough with technology to use the app. They are up against some tough odds.
A poll conducted earlier this year found that less than one in three people over 50 use digital health apps for any purpose. This poll was conducted by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
Yet research by Pew Research Center found that 61% of people over 65 own a smartphone, and that percentage continues to grow.
Renee wants to close this digital divide within the aging population.
“The notion that seniors don’t use tech is a lot of hooey,” Desai said. “Most older Americans use FaceTime, they use text messaging (and) they use Netflix. Because those services are both a lot better and a lot easier than any other way of accomplishing the same task. In health-tech, that standard isn't met. Health-tech always seems to fall to the complexity of tech, rather than the ease of tech we expect in every other part of our life.”
Renee’s competition
There are some similar variations on the health care personal assistant theme.
For example health insurer Cigna recently launched its own “concierge care” platform, with the goal of providing a holistic service for its members who are managing high-cost conditions, like musculoskeletal issues.
Cigna’s concierge service, known as Pathwell, uses data analytics and other digital tools from its sister company, Evernorth.
Benefits of being in L.A.
While the Renee team is spread around the world, its HQ is in Santa Monica.
“West L.A. and SoCal overall have become a bustling tech hub,” Desai said. “From Netflix and Google to tiny startups, there is a thriving ecosystem of venture capital firms, entrepreneurs, early employees and more right here in SoCal. We're proud to have two L.A. VCs — Fika Ventures and Mucker Capital — that both invested in Renee.”
