Health IT, Patient Engagement

Telehealth startup ConsejoSano aims to bridge language gap

ConsejoSano is a telehealth program and insurance benefit that allows health plans, self-insured employers and others to offer members access to around-the-clock healthcare advice from Spanish-speaking physicians, nutritionists and mental health therapists.

A startup telehealth company aims to bridge a language gap in America’s healthcare system.

The fastest-growing population in the U.S. — Hispanics — are having trouble accessing the American healthcare system, which operates primarily in English. And that system can be challenging to navigate, even for English speakers.

Tens of millions of Americans prefer to speak Spanish, their native language. “It’s very difficult to communicate with your healthcare provider if you do not speak the same language,” explained Abner Mason, CEO of Ontario, California-based start-up ConsejoSano (“Healthy Advice”), who noted that the United States is now the second-largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world after Mexico. “We’ve become a bilingual nation, but our healthcare system has not.”

So in January, Mason launched ConsejoSano, a telehealth program and insurance benefit that allows health plans, self-insured employers and others to offer members access to around-the-clock healthcare advice from Spanish-speaking physicians, nutritionists and mental health therapists.

He said the company’s telehealth product does not replace actual physician visits or health plan services.

“We focus on providing 24/7 access to native Spanish-speaking healthcare providers,” Mason said. “We usually solve 60 percent of the issues on the phone. But if we don’t, we offer what we call after-engagement to help them navigate the system. We also encourage people to take advantage of services their health plans are offering.”

He said prevention is important, and members should take advantage of annual wellness visits, breast exam and other preventive services, which many never access. “Our patients connect at a higher rate,” Mason said.

The telehealth physicians are licensed doctors practicing in Mexico. They cannot write prescriptions or make referrals to patients in the U.S., but they can offer sound healthcare advice and ConsejoSano helps members follow up with care in their area.

“If we can’t solve the problem, we help to direct our caller to a U.S. telehealth provider, and when no Spanish-speaking provider is available, we stay on the line and do a three-way to help our members navigate the system.”

Mason said the company’s advice is high-quality, affordable, convenient and confidential.

“We value their privacy and want our members to trust us,” he said, explaining that ConsejoSano partners with one of Mexico’s largest telemedicine providers, a company with more than 5 million subscribers.

ConsejoSano’s medical director is Dr. Alfredo Ratniewski, who also serves as medical director for Borrego Health, a federally qualified health center with 23 locations in Southern California.

Ratniewski said ConsejoSano now contracts with five corporate clients.

“We are a subscription service that charges our clients a per-member, per-month fee. Members receive this as part of their insurance benefit,” he said.

“They don’t pay each time they call. We designed our service to be an ‘all you can eat’ program in which members can call as many times as they like. They can talk to doctors about general medical conditions, call a nutritionist with questions about diet and diabetes and speak with a qualified mental health therapist for emotional support, all in Spanish.”

Ratniewski said ConsejoSano is building in new features to the telehealth platform, including text messaging reminders about follow-up physician appointments, medication compliance and the ability to share information with health plans.

“Continuity of care is important to us,” he said.

 

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