Most people would probably be a bit insulted if they got a message like this one. But if you’re prepared to have wrinkles filled or lips plumped, then you might just take it as a welcome nudge from a close friend your plastic surgeon. You might view this conversation starter as a good opportunity to learn more by downloading an app, having a phone conversation, send additional text messages to a physician or watch a video and, eventually, an in-person visit.
That’s the idea behind eRelevance, which has worked with independent and group dentist and physician practices. It takes their patient databases and automatically transmits messages to start a two way conversation based on recent procedures their patients have had and prospective patients they want to attract.
For example, for patients who have recently had their teeth cleaned, they may receive a follow-up message asking if they’d like to have their teeth whitened or straightened.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
This is just the kind of slick marketing overture that people tend not to associate with the medical industry. As the CEO of eRelevance Bob Fabbio muses, five years ago dentists and doctors would not have seen themselves as needing this sort of marketing approach. With doctors facing reduced reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid for procedures they do cover, it is pushing these practices to boost revenue in other ways.
“These providers are getting clobbered financially by healthcare reform,” Fabbio said in a phone interview. “We can certainly increase the financial viability of their practices.”
The notion of having this engine could be a powerful mechanism on a broader level for other specialist areas such as ophthalmology, OB-GYN, dermatology and other areas where folks have lots of elective stuff done. Fabbio said that it plans to use some of the seed funding it raised recently to target not only physician practices but also health systems. It also plans to double the size of its staff from 12 to 24 by the end of the year.
Nashville, Kentucky-based healthcare investor Martin Ventures led a $1.4 million seed round for the company, accompanied by half a dozen angel investors. In the past month, it added 20 practices and by the end of March, it expects to add another 75.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Martin Ventures is led by Charlie Martin, most well known as the founder and CEO of Vanguard Health Systems, a hospital group he founded in 1997 and later sold to Tenet Healthcare. It’s an investor with contacts that could prove quite useful for a business interested in courting larger customers.
“It was always our intention to go into hospital systems,” Fabbio said. “This is going to accelerate it,”
