What if you could see a doctor every time you need by paying a fixed monthly fee? That's the new subscription offering by a health startup from San Francisco, CA. Forward has just opened a high-tech medical clinic in San Francisco. Its goal is to change how patients approach going to the doctor, from curative to preventive, according to Adrian Aoun, Forward founder and CEO.
For a $149 monthly fee, you can get help with your high cholesterol, a pap smear, or a vaccine for an upcoming overseas trip. Also, the startup offers wearable gadgets and a smartphone app to help gather your health data while at home, as an addition to the data collected at the clinic. Furthermore, you can message a doctor directly from the app and send your most up-to-date health data for analysis.
A big catch is that Forward doesn't accept health insurance. And neither should you cancel yours, since the startup doesn't offer surgeries and many other medical specialties. This makes Forward kind of a concierge medicine practice, only for those who can afford so many expenses. That's why the startup is giving some free memberships to those who can't pay for its services.
Even though preventive medicine can end up being cheaper than its curative counterpart, due to the high prices of surgeries and treatments, Forward's offering is still a tough sell. We will have to wait and see if its business model will succeed or morph into some kind of classic healthcare provider.
Source: MIT Technology Review
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