Medifund: Creating More Doctors Through Crowdfunding

In the United States, we don’t think much about not having enough doctors. It seems like everywhere we turn there are more doctors.

But it’s not like that in other parts of the world, and those areas desperately need good medical care. According to Jossy Onwude, the US is actually on track to be 90,000 doctors short by 2015.

Why is it so hard to get good doctors? Well, have looked at the cost of medical school lately? (Hint: it’s a lot.)

So, Onwude and his team from Startup Weekend Cebu, Philippines are solving that problem by crowdfunding medical education. They soft-launched earlier this year, and are already seeing interest from investors and users alike.

Check out our Q&A with Onwude below.

What does your company do?

We are crowdfunding future doctors for areas with shortages/the whole world.

Who are the founders, and what are their backgrounds?

Jossy Onwude, MD student who has founded two startups in the past

Leo, a very versatile Python programer

Faye, a brilliant Python programmer

Michael, A very good designer/User experience expert for 7 years

What’s the story behind your idea?

Medifund started when I was looking for a way to help a friend of mine who was about to drop out of med school. We searched for a way to help her raised funds but couldn’t find any. So I said to myself, “Why not start one?”

Then the idea began but now we are not just trying to help med students, but we want to create more doctors for the people of the world.

Where are you based?

We are based in Cebu, Philippines

What’s the startup scene like where you are based?

The startup scene here is pretty immature. But there is progress and things are getting better. Not the way they were two years ago. The talent is there, but the major problem we face here is funding. Not enough angels and VCs.

Why now?

Because this is the best time to start. It’s been estimated that by 2015 the United States alone would face a doctor shortage of 90,000 physicians. So its better we act now and try to solve that.

What are your next milestones?

Complete our funding round, release loan feature(so that students can have better chance of getting the money they need), add marketing staff, and add more features

Where can people find out more? Any social media links you want to share?

To find out more visit www.medifund.co or check out our fb page at www.facebook.com/medifund or on tiwtter atwww.twitter.com/medifund_co

6 Game-Changing Health Startups

In recent years, the healthcare industry has changed dramatically in terms of how general health knowledge is shared and how it has impacted our overall health. From tracking our progress in our workouts to keeping tabs on our heart rate and blood sugar levels, there isn’t much that we can’t monitor ourselves in between our regular checkups to our doctor’s office.

The healthcare industry has thus begun to provide everyday people with more readily available and convenient ways to track our health and become more aware of how the lives we live impact our bodies. Today, people have become far more aware and tuned into their health than previous generations, meaning that with so much health-related information available, there are plenty of us who are interested in utilizing it.

What many don’t realize is that It’s not just WebMD and Mayo Clinic who are leading the charge.

There are a lot of smaller startup medical healthcare companies that are specializing in providing health-related information to individuals, and are helping to improve the healthcare industry by making it less exclusive, less expensive and more accessible to people, mostly through the use of technology.

1. BluePrint Health

BluePrint Health is a unique group of healthcare professionals, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who specialize in consultation for other healthcare companies. Their goal is to assist those companies with the business side of the work and to help connect the two disciplines. They’ve assisted a number of companies, including Symcat, iCouch and Allazo Health.

2. iCouch

It’s an app that allows you to search for a therapist based on your area of need, whether it be anger, anxiety or depression and then schedule an appointment with that therapist. Once an appointment is scheduled, you’re able to pay for the session through the app (which is very easy) and then you use the app to actually meet with the therapist over the internet in a Skype-style video chat session.

3. Eliza Corporation

The Eliza Corporation specializes in health engagement management solutions, which essentially means they help healthcare companies establish mediums for communicating with people about their health and allowing those people to respond. They’re a consulting firm that’s similar to BluePrint Health.

4.Simplee

Simplee is an app that is designed to help people pay for their health care in an easier, more straightforward environment that focuses on helping people know exactly what they owe and why they owe it.

5. Patient Knows Best

This company specializes in making medical records available to patients and making it simpler for them to connect with clinicians for a mutual benefit. Additionally, they provide tools and information that help doctors to improve care quality and to help patients manage their own health and save time on medical-related tasks.

6. FitOrbit

This unique fitness startup offers online personal trainers to help clients lose weight without having to pay the high prices of in-person trainers. The cost is less than $50 a month, and you do in fact get your own real life personal trainer. The trainer works with you just like any other, helping to establish meal plans, workout routines, while providing motivation and whatever else is necessary to help you succeed.

It’s a completely new way to utilize a personal trainer, with a price that’s tough to beat.

A New Wave of Healthcare

As traditional healthcare continues to get more expensive, startups (like these) that don’t rely on third party insurance companies are going to become more and more commonplace. The most attractive thing about them is that it allows you to be in direct control with an affordable form of healthcare, without needing to rely on an insurance company or government agency.

Keep an eye on companies like these as demand for them could certainly skyrocket in the near future.

Camille McClane is honored to have had the opportunity to share her knowledge of these health startups. In collaboration with HostPapa, her writing also covers nearly everything in the tech industry, including online marketing, social media and SEO.

Atlanta Startups Transforming The Business Of Healthcare

Health care billing in the United States is a notoriously convoluted process routinely leaving doctors – the backbone of the health care system and entrepreneurs in their own right – to worry about their practice’s cash flow and their own bottom line. Two Atlanta startups are giving doctors affordable new tools to increase revenue, eliminate lost charges and manage their offices more efficiently, allowing doctors to focus on what they do best, providing their patients with excellent health care.

Transforming the Waiting Room Experience

With their iPad-based PatientPad, Digital Assent is transforming the patient experience from the moment they arrive at their doctor’s office.

“PatientPad is designed to improve the quality of the entire patient visit, from start to finish,” Digital Assent’s CEO, Andrew Ibbotson, said. “And nearly everything about the PatientPad is easily customized for each practice.”

The company’s recently shipped second-generation device is a specially configured iPad optimized for use in a doctor’s office. Housed in a proprietary enclosure protecting the iPad from drops and water damage (and making it easy to disinfect), the PatientPad 2 runs a custom iPad app that wraps a full-screen web browser.

Aimed primarily at the “cash-pay” segment of the health care industry that includes cosmetic dermatologists, plastic surgeons and high-end medical spas, the tablet is designed to give patients a great first impression. To accomplish this, each PatientPad “includes a customized welcome screen with the practice’s name and welcome message, custom-configured patient check-in questionnaires, and content that is hand-picked by each practice to educate and entertain their patients while they wait,” Ibbotson said. Additional options include the ability to display before and after pictures, notify patients of upcoming events and promotions, apply for healthcare financing and enroll in loyalty programs – all before the patient leaves the office.

“As you can imagine, practices that specialize in aesthetic medicine are very image-conscious,” Ibbotson said. “Many of our customers cite the importance of appearing modern, current, and cutting-edge in every facet of their practice. PatientPad sets the tone that an office is modern and technologically advanced.”

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Are VC’s Bypassing Early Stage Health Deals?

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(image: policymed.com)

Success stories, like the one of Memphis’ medical device accelerator Zeroto510, where 80% of their first class received follow on funding, seem to be growing scarce on a national scale. In their first class of six startups at the ZeroTo510 program 5 of the startups received follow on funding, with one, Restore Medical Solutions, going straight to a $2.5 million dollar series A round.

Well national medical startup publication MedCity News, released two graphs this morning that may be alarming to early stage medical startups, who often need a lot more seed money than your social, mobile, webtech startups.

The data, published by CB Insights, shows a significant number of VCs are skipping over earlier stage “seed round” deals for healthcare startups. Conversely, the same data set shows that the “series A crunch” may not be as prevalent in healthcare startups.

As you can see clearly from the data set Series A and Series B seem to be the preferred stage for a VC firm to get into a startup business, at least over the last five quarters.

According to MedCity News VC Funding in healtcare was up over the last year, in fact reaching a “multi year high”. Also worthy to note is that the medical device category is eating up the most VC funds. That should be good for the next round of ZeroTo510, Rock Health and Health Box.

Restore Medical talks to us about their $2.5 million dollar Series A round.