Bright Health, Doximity go public; Ro buys Kit; Get rid of the 'annual' doctor visits

Invent Health with Dr. Archana Dubey and Bambi Francisco Roizen; Episode 11

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.

In this episode, they cover the active market of IPOs during the past week!! Doximity goes public and the stock doubles! Doximity refers to itself as LinkedIn focused solely on the medical industry. It also provides a telehealth platform for mom-and-pop clinics. While some say Doximity competes with Teladoc, they’re both addressing different markets. Yes. They’re going after physicians, but Teladoc is becoming a new healthcare system under its brand whereas Doximity is white-label platform play. Doximity also generates revenue from pharmaceutical companies seeking to sell their drugs to medical professionals. It’s also a recruiting tool for health systems. Bright Health, backed by NEA and Bessemer, went public at $18 but fell in trading. Bright Health is yet another tech-enabled insurance company going public, following Clover Health and Oscar. Both companies are also not faring so well in the public market. Physitrack goes public Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market.   

Direct-to-consumer telehealth company Ro buys Kit for an undisclosed amount to get into the home-testing market, another booming space as evidenced by Letsgetchecked landing $150 million. Cleerly gets $43 million in financing to use advanced CT scanning to detect potential  heart attacks. 

The deep dive this week is once again primary care as the next Invent Health event is November and is titled: Primary Care and the New Medical QB. Why are they focused on this topic? Primary care is broken. Physicians are reporting burnout at twice the rate of other healthcare caregivers in primary care practices. Adding insult to injury, they’re one of the lowest-paid doctors. A 2019 study found that under 6% of healthcare spending went to primary care in the US compared to 14% for other OECD countries on average.  Primary care physicians are the gateway to our health. Consider that 79% of antidepressants are prescribed by doctors, who more often than not prefer to spend more time with patients than just administer medications.   

Here’s the conundrum: Primary care doctors cannot sustain the workload. But at the same time, patients should see them more often to prevent future sickness. So what to do? The conclusion: Doctors can't be paid by unit pricing and paid per visit. They must see fewer patients to spend more time with them, but also engage with them through other means, like text or FB-like messenger platforms and get paid for those episodes. They should work closely with care teams, a la Crossover model, consisting of a primary care physician, psychologist, mental health therapist, physical therapist, health coach, and nutritionist. Technology should be used to capture relevant information frequently so caregivers don't have to deal with repetitive administration but also to provide a form of checkup to care teams and patients on say a quarterly basis. The guidance should also be once-a-quarter preventative visit vs an annual visit. 

Editor's note: On July 14, we'll continue our Future of Mental and Behavioral Health 2021 virtual series. Use "inventhealth" for a complimentary ticket! This year's event hosted top-level VCs and C-level executives from the leading mental and behavioral companies, such as Teladoc's BetterHelp, K Health, BetterUp, Ginger, Amwell, Doctor on Demand, Kaiser Permanente, Bessemer Ventures and more.