Peloton’s healthcare prospects; Vaccine mandate debate; $6.2B invested in Q2

Invent Health with Dr. Archana Dubey and Bambi Francisco Roizen; Episode 12

The Invent Health weekly podcast with Dr. Archana Dubey and Bambi Francisco Roizen is the only weekly podcast that breaks down the latest digital health news of the week and what it means for patients, providers and payers (or who's paying). Plus a deep dive on a particular topic to help listeners understand how innovation is changing the healthcare paradigm. This week's deep dive: Primary care.

Firstly, congrats to Archana for becoming HP’s Chief Medical Officer. She was formerly the Global Medical Director. 

Thanks to our sponsors: Advsr; a boutique M&A advisory firm. They wrote the book on startup M&A called "Magic Box Paradigm: A framework for startup acquisitions." Go to Amazon.com to get your copy. Also thanks to Stratpoint, an outsourced engineering firm and Scrubbed, an online bookkeeping firm. If you need affordable and quality engineering and bookkeeping, check them out. We highly recommend them!

In this week’s episode, the two analyze Peloton’s moves into healthcare. This past week, it partnered with UnitedHealthcare to offer free subscriptions to 4 million United members. This follows Peloton’s launch of its corporate wellness division last month. Mental health provider Ginger gets into teen market. Another medical provider group mandating COVID-19 requirements. The two do not believe these mandates will get very far, particularly if someone has a side effect from the vaccine. The second quarter is another whopping multi-billion investment period as $6.2 billion was invested in digital health. They take another deep dive into primary care by looking at the many different players organized in this Vator article penned by Steve Loeb titled Startups and newcomers disrupting primary care. 

They talk about which companies are really creating "primary care" focused on care vs companies focused on the transactions. The in-person first clinics appear to be focused on the care whereas the direct-to-consumer companies, like Ro and Hims & Hers, are focused on the pill-dispensing transactions easier and faster. And while many of the approaches vary and are largely urgent care, given the on-demand nature of these sites, they are all moving toward primary care where a person has a relationship with a doctor. In that model, the company has a more recurring relationship with the consumer. The early model (a la Teladoc) was aggregating doctors and establishing telehealth. Now the industry is seeing the emergence of more AI-assisted urgent care. They will collide eventually. The question is will the aggregators of doctors win vs the AI-urgent care providers?