When serial entrepreneur Mario Schlosser’s wife was pregnant with their first child, the couple confronted the same questions that many first-time parents face: Who is the right OB/GYN to guide them through the pregnancy? Which is the best maternity ward? How much is the birth going to cost? And, for later, who is the right pediatrician for the baby?
“As a consumer of healthcare, for a while you wonder, ‘Am I stupid?’ or ‘Am I missing something?’” Schlosser told me. “You try desperately to figure out how this healthcare system works, and which physician to go to and what the costs will be, and you realize that no, it’s not you that’s stupid. It’s the system that’s stupid.”
He was already noodling with the idea for Oscar, a healthcare startup that aims to disrupt an entrenched industry by focusing on the customer experience, leveraging technology to make buying and using health insurance easier and, well, friendlier. The company launched in New York in 2013, expanding to New Jersey and then Texas late last year.
Now, with the open-enrollment deadline for health insurance just days away, the company has been plastering Los Angeles with its cute cartoon ads on billboards and buses. Oscar came to L.A. in November and started insuring area customers on Jan. 1.
The website certainly is slick. (There’s also an app.) Schlosser walked me through a demo, illustrating how easy it is to sign up (just enter your zip code and a few details about your family), select a plan with simplified explanations and start looking for a doctor (type in “asthma” or “It hurts when I pee.”) The system shows a few options, including your primary care physician, a specialist, urgent care or the emergency room and the estimated costs for each, then helps you make an appointment. Or you can request a doctor to call you for free.
Once you’ve seen or talked to a doctor, the visit is recorded on Oscar, as well as any prescriptions, and your account becomes a clearinghouse for all your healthcare information: your doctor appointments, drug prescriptions, emergency-room visits, insurance claims, etc., giving both you and your doctor access to your complete health history. That’s a stark contrast to the way it works for many patients now, who might go in for an annual checkup without their PCP having any idea they were in the ER the week before.
Date: January 27, 2016