Jim Donnelly, CEO of Restore Hyper Wellness, on VatorNews podcast

Restore Hyper Wellness is a health and wellness company started in 2015

Bambi Francisco Roizen speaks with Jim Donnelly, CEO of Restore Hyper Wellness, a health and wellness company started in 2015.

Our overall goal with these podcasts is to understand how technology is radically changing healthcare: the way we screen, treat and measure progress and outcomes. How we’re empowering the consumer. Whether we’re creating productivity that drives economic costs down? And how tech advancements change the role of the doctor. 

Since providing in-depth coverage of digital health innovation since 2017, Vator and Bambi are big proponents of lifestyle as medicine - promoting healthy living (diet, exercise, prayer, sleep) as the leading preventative steps for the most optimal outcomes. Restore Hyper Wellness falls into the category of companies promoting self-care vs sick care. 

Here are some takeaways:

• Jim was inspired to create Restore after loving the service, but not the retail experience. Soon after he tried his first cryotherapy session, he convinced Steven Welch, founder of VC firm Dreamit Ventures, to open their own studio. 
• The first studio cost a few hundred thousand dollars that was funded by both Jim and Steven and opened in 2015 in Austin, Texas, far less than today’s cost to open a Restore franchise, which includes franchise costs of $800k to $1 million to open. This includes the franchise fee, marketing budget, equipment, etc.
• The initial studio offered cryotherapy only, but that quickly expanded to other modalities such as IV therapy to hyperbaric therapy. Restore can practice medicine in 46 states. The average member visits Restore 4-5 times a month, making Restore’s relationship with its members a more familiar one than a person’s relationship with their doctor. Many of the members have chronic conditions. 
• Restore is part of a global movement to empower people to proactively stay healthy. It is a combination of a wellness center and medical center by providing offerings that are non-clinical, like cryotherapy, and clinical, like IVs. 
• Jim believes this movement can be attributed in no small way to when Obamacare triggered deductibles to explode, forcing many people to spend out of pocket and become more mindful to stay healthy. The opioid crisis then showed the downside of medications – addiction. These events led to increased awareness of the problems in the current approach to healthcare. Covid then ushered in the realization that healthy people were less likely to get severely ill from Covid. 
• One KPI for Restore is the number of services delivered. To date, that is 3 million.
• Doctors who work are Medical Directors at Restore have typically owned their own clinic and have had years of experience. They oversee the studios from the medical perspective and oversee Registered Nurses and other staff members who interface with members. 
• Restore doesn’t take insurance but a member can use their HSA (Health Savings Account) to purchase services.
• Cryotherapy sessions are around three minutes in negative 200 degree temperature. The value of cryotherapy is that blood gets oxygenated and full of proteins that can decrease inflammation. Read the science behind it on Restore. Ice baths can produce similar results but they take longer and can be more painful to sit in freezing cold water for 20 minutes vs 3 minutes. Red light therapy uses red and infrared wavelengths of light to boost energy levels. Read the science behind this therapy.
• Restore services cost about $25 per session for members. Membership is as low as $69 a month. Restore continues to experiment with different types of membership models.

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