What would happen if we blew up the concept of the doctor office visit?
Doctors get paid exclusively for office visits. So, they keep happening, because money. But what would happen if the primary means of communicating with your doctor and care team was online and a message could be sent at any time of any day and you could expect a response within 12 minutes? Or, if needed, you could pick up the phone or jump on a … Continue reading What would happen if we blew up the concept of the doctor office visit?
Primary care was made for simpler times. It’s time to reconsider.
Traditionally, when things were simpler, people had a primary care doctor. He looked and acted a lot like Marcus Welby or Doc Hollywod. But something huge happened that changed everything. The general field of medicine became overly complex. Atul Gawande, in his commencement speech, Cowboys and Pit Crews, addresses this complexity problem: The core structure of medicine—how health care is organized and practiced—emerged in an … Continue reading Primary care was made for simpler times. It’s time to reconsider.
What does it mean to scale primary care?
Direct Primary Care doesn’t geographically scale to all employees everywhere in America. And 10 minute video visits are severely limited and can only treat ~30 simple low-cost conditions. Sherpaa combines the relationship-driven continuity of care seen in Direct Primary Care with the geographic reach of telehealth to deliver geographically scalable, broad-scoped primary care. I created Virtual Primary Care (Sherpaa) with a mission to scale primary … Continue reading What does it mean to scale primary care?
The most expensive thing in healthcare is the doctor’s pen.
However, most plan interventions are set in motion after the order has been made. There are services that try to redirect a patient to a lower cost imaging center, but after the doctor already faxed the order to the imaging center run by their golfing buddy. There are PBMs that fulfill a ridiculously expensive Rx from a doctor who’s 100% ignorant about how much that … Continue reading The most expensive thing in healthcare is the doctor’s pen.
Comparing costs and claims in a group of 1,000 people in traditional settings vs. Sherpaa
Let’s take a group of 1,000 and analyze how they use healthcare for a year. First, we’ll look at their traditional usage leveraging PCP office visits, specialist visits, urgent care centers, and ERs. Then, we’ll look at how they use healthcare with Sherpaa. Traditional Usage per 1,000 employees Sherpaa Usage per 1,000 Employees First, some background. Sherpaa encourages people to reach out to our doctors … Continue reading Comparing costs and claims in a group of 1,000 people in traditional settings vs. Sherpaa
Caretech
Over the years, we’ve seen so many attempts to define the intersection between the internet and healthcare. Here are just a few: Digital Health Health 2.0 Health IT Telehealth Definitions are important. They enable us to categorize things to create a better understanding through a shared language. And that got me thinking about what my efforts over the last 11 years should be called. And, … Continue reading Caretech
How is Sherpaa different from telehealth like Teladoc?
Sherpaa is Virtual Primary Care, not telehealth. Telehealth (Teladoc and the other video/phone visit companies) is for pink eye and 30 other simple conditions. A doctor’s ability to diagnose and treat more than those 30 things is due to the limitations of a 10 minute phone or video conversation between strangers without the ability to order tests or follow-up with you. Virtual Primary Care/Sherpaa treats … Continue reading How is Sherpaa different from telehealth like Teladoc?
The anatomy of a primary care practice
A 10,000 patient primary care practice will have: 7-8 FTE primary care doctors 4 support staff per doctor (nurses, nurse practitioners, receptionist, billers, etc.) This adds up to 30 to 35 staff to support 10,000 patients. Volume and maximizing billing is the game as complexities to interface with insurers + inflation increases costs every year. The PCPs can diagnose and manage ~1,500 typical primary care … Continue reading The anatomy of a primary care practice
“I feel confident and in control of my health care choices…my doctor empowers me.”
When your Sherpaa doctor orders anything via Sherpaa’s platform, this sends a notification to the patient allowing them to confirm or deny the order. Most of the time, they confirm the order. But sometimes they deny the order and, therefore, must provide a reason. Is it too expensive? Do they not believe in the treatment? Have they tried it before and it didn’t work? By … Continue reading “I feel confident and in control of my health care choices…my doctor empowers me.”
Slack + Pivotal Tracker + Highrise = Sherpaa
If you mash up Slack (for team communication) + Pivotal Tracker (for project management— your pneumonia is a project to be managed over time by a team of health professionals) + Highrise (so your care team can know who to coordinate local care with)…you get Sherpaa’s platform. The messaging component of our platform enables our doctors to communicate with the patient and to communicate with … Continue reading Slack + Pivotal Tracker + Highrise = Sherpaa
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