Introducing my new company, Sherpaa.

So for the past month I’ve been laying all the groundwork for my next company. It’s called Sherpaa. The branding and the site are coming together nicely and the legal side of things is too. Here’s what Sherpaa will do:

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a friend of a friend who was complaining of a few hours worth of worsening belly pain. I was worried it might be appendicitis. I forwarded the email to my personal friend Dr. X who is a well-trained and super likeable general surgeon with a beautiful office overlooking Union Square. I reiterated that this might be appendicitis. I texted him that I sent him the details. He texted back, “Send him right over.” I texted the friend of a friend and told him to go immediately to Dr. X. He did. Dr. X examined him and was also worried. Dr. X has recently been operating at a new outpatient surgical center on Park Ave. It has a CT scanner. Dr. X sent the patient to the center, told them to get a CT, and, if it’s positive, to set up an operating room for him. He could be there in a half hour. The CT was positive and a room was set up. Dr. X performed the laparascopic appendectomy without complications and the patient was sent home on oral antibiotics three hours later. Dr. X billed the insurance company $47,000. The insurance company called him the next day to ask why his bill was so small. Dr. X’s previous laparascopic appendectomies while operating at the high overhead, massive traditional institution, Y Hospital, was around $110,000, for which, Dr. X is paid $1500. The rest of that money goes toward Y Hospital’s overhead. Because of the low-overhead and business arrangement at the new Park Avenue Surgical Center, Dr. X kept 52% of $47,000.

Just to reiterate, a person with acute appendicitis had his appendix removed by an amazing surgeon in a beautiful spa-like experience and never stepped foot in an ER or a hospital, and the bill was $63,000 less than going the traditional ER/Hospital route.

Everybody won in the situation:

• The patient had an unbelievable experience.
• Dr. X made much more than the traditional route.
• The insurance company/self-insured employer saved $63,000.
• Me. I helped a friend get better.

The only entity that lost was the ridiculously high overhead, traditional hospital that can’t/won’t get their head out of their asses to offer up patients a great experience.

The above example is an extreme situation. But say, for example, you cut your finger slicing a bagel a few minutes ago. You send us an email with a photo you just took with your iPhone. We look at it and then text it to our network of plastic surgeons in the area to see who has the bandwidth to sew you up in the next hour or so.

Our goal is to give you a great experience, and as a side-effect, also decrease your costs. Because it’s quite idiotic that triage has been allocated to the ridiculously expensive ERs and ridiculously inaccessible primary care doctors.

So Sherpaa is changing that. Call it Triage 2.0 maybe. It’s like having a doctor friend who has mapped out the best experiences in NYC and created a network of hand-picked health professionals chosen for their quality, their communication skills, their personality, and their mission. You can call or email us anytime when you’re in a bind and we’ll work with you to figure out:

• What should I do?
• When should I do it?
• Where should I go?
• Who should I see?
• How much should I pay?

Our customers are small businesses/startups who may or may not be self-insured in NYC who want to offer this as a perk for their employees. It’s pretty exciting and I think it’s my best idea yet. And it’ll be brought to you by my company, The Future Well. If you’re a doctor in NYC and think you want to be a part of this, please do contact me.