OCTOBER 8, 2018 BY MURIEL VEGA
For many patients, just getting to their
doctor’s appointments is an uphill battle. Medical or cost restrictions may
make public transportation and ride sharing not a viable option. Nearly 4 million adults
and children with chronic conditions miss or delay medical
appointments each year, because they don’t have a ride.
On the other side of the equation, hospitals
often have a hard time finding quality transportation partners that are
reliable. Many don’t follow instructions or provide a quality of care that meet
the standards of the hospital.
Entrepreneur Erica Plybeah saw this gap between the
patients and the hospitals firsthand with her own type-2 diabetic grandmother,
a double-leg amputee who used a wheelchair for the latter part of her life. Her
main transportation was her daughter, Plybeah’s mom, who worked
full-time and had a hard time getting her back and forth to doctor
appointments. There was no access to other forms of transportation in their
small town.
Thanks to almost a decade in clinical
IT, Plybeah gained experience finding technical solutions for hospitals
and clinics. “As I worked with hospitals more, I’ve learned that transportation
and how it affects the health of patients is a huge problem, not just in Memphis
but across the country.” According to a new report, 20 percent
of a patient’s health is linked directly to medical care, but social and
economic factors account for another 40 percent, including nutrition, housing,
education and access to transportation.
Plybeah entered a medtech-focused pitch
competition and, after hearing the direct feedback from hospital
administrators, moved forward with creating cloud-based patient transportation
solution MedHaul.
“We’re helping eliminate transportation
barriers for patients and poor and rural community. We are a platform that
connects hospitals and clinics with quality transportation providers in their
communities. We focus on providing rides for any type of patient regardless of
their various needs,” says Plybeah.
Currently, hospitals must go through their
rolodex of transportation providers, leaving voicemails with each, until one of
them is available to book the ride for the patient. The process is inefficient
and often leads to sub-par patient care. “Hospitals usually just pick the first
one that they see… then on the flip side, the transportation providers don’t
have the accurate information because everything was a phone call,” Plybeah
says.
With MedHaul, caseworkers and nurses log on to
the platform, add a patient’s basic demographics and caregiver information (for
example, if they’re in a wheelchair or non-emergency stretcher) and the
platform filters the top providers that fit that criteria. The chosen provider
picks up the ride through the platform and receives details on the patient and
an optimized route.
The hospital, clinic or nursing home can track
when the driver is on its way, similar to other ride sharing companies, and the
caregiver gets updates from the patient for peace of mind.
To screen providers, MedHaul looks through the
Medicaid basic transportation standards in each state and adds a few criteria
of their own to make sure they’re on boarding only the top providers in the
area. The team makes an on-site visit to inspect the company’s vehicles and
meet the staff after they reach out. Pending all approvals and insurance
coverage, the provider can be live on the platform within a week.
Hospitals and healthcare agencies pay for
access to the patient transportation management platform on a SaaS model. The
client buys a specific ride package for a flat fee every month, and refills
their rides on a recurring basis.
The startup has two active pilots with Memphis
hospitals and two more starting in the next few weeks. They have completed
pilots with insurance carriers and emergency agencies as well.
“While there are a couple of competitors
across the country, I think what MedHaul does stands out because we’re actually
targeting the communities that need this service the most, where transportation
and healthcare are not easily accessible,” says Plybeah. According to the National Rural Health
Association, 670+ rural hospitals are at risk of closing, making
transportation a larger issue in low-income, rural areas.
“My experience in healthcare gives me a unique
insight into how you actually create a software solution for a hospital — how
it would be implemented, how they use it, and what they would pay for it.”
Ready to build upon her newly-acquired lessons
from the Google for Entrepreneurs Black Founders Exchange program,
Plybeah shares that she’s currently seeking to raise a $500,000 seed round to
scale their operations to two more cities, onboard new providers, and grow the
engineering team to refine the platform.
https://hypepotamus.com/companies/medhaul/?itx[idio]=8812325&ito=792&itq=2f8cca7c-5ce0-49ee-a029-032ecc5b303e
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