Which is worse? Finding out that you have to undergo surgery or finding out how much the surgery will cost you?
If you’re like me, the cost is probably worse. Now, imagine if you could hop online and find a doctor with equivalent skill, equipment, and knowledge in another country that will do the procedure for a fraction of the cost. That is the premise behind Chicago based start-up HuliHealth, whose goal is to enable people to find, contact, and book appointments with doctors anywhere in the world.
There are many reasons people travel for medical care and they all stem from the fact that each country has specific healthcare market inefficiencies (costs, long waiting periods, lack of local expertise, lack of technology, etc.) [See InfoGraphic]
Alejandro Vega, co-founder and CEO, said, “HuliHealth aims to connect any person in the world to any doctor in the world. Believe it or not, the medical travel industry currently works just as the travel agency industry worked 15-20 years ago. In order to travel overseas, people must contact a medical tourism facilitator to set up their trip. These brokers exacerbate the inefficiencies and lack of transparency that currently exist in the doctor selection process. Our goal is to conceive the next generation of medical travel, where people from the U.S. and other countries will be able to use HuliHealth to find a doctor that fits their needs.”
HuliHealth’s web based system, which is still under development, will allow users to:
- Search an international list of doctors and dentists by specialty and/or procedure in order to find a subset of doctors/dentists who can meet their specific treatment needs;
- Evaluate each doctor based on patient reviews, credentials, and cost;
- Contact their selected doctors and discuss individual treatment options;
- Make an appointment for free with his or her chosen doctor;
- Communicate for the full duration of the treatment process, from pre-procedure consultation to post-procedure follow-up care.
HuliHealth plans to generate revenue by receiving commission from doctors and related providers and therefore offer a free platform for users. The team of 7 members (5 full time and 2 part time) are currently working to complete a prototype of the website and have been receiving guidance from Bernhard Kappe of Pathfinder, a Chicago-based software development firm. An initial beta test of the prototype with a few doctors is expected before the product is fully launched.
When it comes to healthcare everyone knows there will be some concerns over privacy and objectiveness. However, Vega assured me that the HuliHealth team is addressing compliance and transparency hurdles before these become an issue. With these issues addressed, HuliHealth may change the way we find healthcare providers.
Although HuliHealth is still in development, launch is expected in the upcoming months. Check out www.HuliHealth.com for more information.
View Comments (12)
Not sure if this is anything different than North American Surgery. I would highly recommend the founders researching past failed international healthcare startups. Most startups in the space have failed because it is not a very big market. The main trade association for healthcare tourism declared the industry a bust a few months ago.Â
I think a more interesting area would be to partner with a major hospital association and create a offshore healthcare facility for insured patients. Given the option. Most insured patients take the trip (surprisingly) If the founders read this, hit me up on Twitter. I can tell you my experiences.Â
Thanks for commenting. I am not familiar with North American Surgery or other past attempts within the industry. Can you clarify, what you mean when you say that the medical tourism industry is not a very big market? I had the impression that the market was adequate and growing. Again, thanks for shedding your input and I am sure the @HuliHealth team will see your post.Â
Sure.Â
out http://www.imtj.com/. They are the leading information source on medical tourism, though they have a slant. Right now, the picture for medical tourism is not that great; however, domestic tourism within the US is growing at a slow rate. Britain also has one of the strongest medical tourism markets.Check out this study by McKinsey http://www.imtj.com/articles/2011/new-study-us-medical-tourism-statistics-30089/ . The IMTJ puts a positive spin on it but the AMA and other medical journals concurred with McKinsey. It is not a very popular practice. As well, the market is pretty full with old school competitors. Where HuliHealth could break into the market as a more seamless booking system. Most current medical tourism practices are brokerages that work the phone to get deals. A seamless portal is much more efficient; however, as the startup will learn, doctors are very hard to sell on pragmatic solutions like EMR, let alone medical tourism. I would suggest partnering with established medical tourism practices and do referral fees. Create a B2B platform like SABRE. That would be an excellent pivotBTW, I am a healthcare entrepreneur, though I come from the healthcare side not the consumer web side. Most entrepreneurs move from consumer web into the healthcare space. As a tech community, we seriously need to advance ourselves if we want to have a real impact. Right now, the healthcare industry looks down on silicon valley as immature and ignorant innovators. Heck, Eric Schmidt was shouted down by a leading doctor at a recent tech event. We need to break this "healthcare egoism". I want HuliHealth to succeed, but the most successful medical tourism practices I know only schedule one to three appointments a day....on a good day.
I 100% agree that tech based start-ups do not get the respect they deserve in some communities within fields such as healthcare, medical tech and biotech. I hope that companies like HuliHealth will find a way to change some minds within these industries. As, I am not a medical tourism expert I will leave it to others to chime in and give their thoughts about the industry.
Not sure why it isn’t obvious to everyone that HuliHealth
will be conceiving the next generation of medical travel ;)
Yes. The US
outbound medical tourism industry is undoubtedly smaller than the 1.6
million outbound patients by 2012 organizations such as the Medical Tourism
Association tout. That is the problem when non-profits – with medical tourism
side businesses making more money from conferences, magazines, etc. than any of
the facilitators (and doctors) in their network – get carried away with overly
optimistic industry reports.
No. Our target market isn’t only the more conservative
estimate of ~100k-200k US patients that travel abroad. We are striving for the
elimination of country-specific healthcare industry inefficiencies. There are
many reasons why people in any given country will travel abroad for healthcare
(http://blog.hulihealth.com/2011/06/top-6-reasons-for-medical-travel/).
The trick (very challenging trick, I might add) is to provide a vehicle for
patients in each of these countries to address their specific needs. We
consider US outbound medical tourism to be a small sub segment of our market.
Yes. Major hospital associations with offshore healthcare
facilities might provide interesting opportunities. With that said, given the
large capital investment required and the size of the market (US outbound), I personally
don’t think the ROI is worthwhile. I would rather invest in healthcare
facilities that cater to an emerging market’s underserved middle class.
No. We are not like North American Surgery (or hundreds of
other outbound and domestic MT facilitators). We are more akin to a kayak-like
ZocDoc.com that caters to travelers, expats and locals. In fact, if we are
successful, it is our goal to eliminate the traditional medical tourism
facilitators. We are currently working on a few blog posts
(blog.hulihealth.com) that will explain the inefficiencies intrinsic in the
existing medical tourism broker business model. We will be posting our thoughts
in the coming weeks.
Yes. Would love to chat! Always eager to learn from the experiences
of other entrepreneurs, please hit me up at @HuliHealth.
I tweeted your account (aaronlginn). DM me.Â
Thanks!
Not sure why it isn’t obvious to everyone that HuliHealth will be conceiving the next generation of medical travel ;)
Yes. The US outbound medical tourism industry is undoubtedly smaller than the 1.6 million outbound patients by 2012 organizations such as the Medical Tourism Association tout. That is the problem when non-profits – with medical tourism side businesses making more money from conferences, magazines, etc. than any of the facilitators (and doctors) in their network – get carried away with overly optimistic industry reports.Â
No. Our target market isn’t only the more conservative estimate of ~100k-200k US patients that travel abroad. We are striving for the elimination of country-specific healthcare industry inefficiencies. There are many reasons why people in any given country will travel abroad for healthcare (http://blog.hulihealth.com/2011/06/top-6-reasons-for-medical-travel/). The trick (very challenging trick, I might add) is to provide a vehicle for patients in each of these countries to address their specific needs. We consider US outbound medical tourism to be a small sub segment of our market.
Yes. Major hospital associations with offshore healthcare facilities might provide interesting opportunities. With that said, given the large capital investment required and the size of the market (US outbound), I personally don’t think the ROI is worthwhile. I would rather invest in healthcare facilities that cater to an emerging market’s underserved middle class.
No. We are not like North American Surgery (or hundreds of other outbound and domestic MT facilitators). Â We are more akin to a TripAdvisor for medical travelers, expats and locals. In fact, if we are successful, it is our goal to eliminate the traditional medical tourism facilitators. We are currently working on a few blog posts (blog.hulihealth.com) that will explain the inefficiencies intrinsic in the existing medical tourism broker business model. We will be posting our thoughts in the coming weeks.
Yes. Would love to chat! Always eager to learn from the experiences of other entrepreneurs, please hit me up at @HuliHealth. Alejandro
Yes, - Medical Travel is great space to be in. I already own similar product - Medical Tourism Social network - Kosansh - http://www.kosansh.com
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