Bringing Empathy to Healthcare with PatientPartner

Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. Startups get the party. Startups get the party started. You want tech and tacos, tacos and tech you know we got tacos and tech is on smash border green guacamole keeper countins counting beans Contador quentan frijoles found us trying to raise some queso la vida San Diego school of rappy rapping fire tortillas round jalapenos in these modern times a crappy beer and coffee my coding yoga posse fold the body origami we be surfing coronado eating tacos El gordo, the taco stand in pesto lucha libre and sombrero Got a shout out to cost angels by the ocean watch the sunset la Hoya shores Entrepreneurs trying to get funded when San Diego Startup Week is popping in the summer Oceanside, the Tijuana esti be full of hustlers from couch surfing to penthouses right on the beach Tech leaders who you believe stars are within reach we interview and founders who be shooting for the Moon SDTechOS with your host Neil Bloom. Startups get the party, startups get the.

Welcome to the Tacos and Tech podcast where we discover cutting edge San Diego technologies and the builders making it happen. I'm your host Neil Bloom, San Diego's tech ambassador and together you're going to put a face to the name of today's tech leaders with our own blend of local lifestyle. This segment is brought to you by Cox Edge. Our longtime partnership with Cox Business has helped their engineering teams develop new tech products for small businesses and startups. Cox is investing in Edge capabilities and working with developers and engineers across the ecosystem to deliver ultra low latency compute solutions helping customers to improve application performance and to reduce cloud transport and on premise infrastructure costs. Interested in hearing more about Cox Edge? Please visit coxedge.com and mention Neil Bloom or freshbroodtech.com for our partner discount.

And welcome back to the Tacos in Tech Podcast. I am your host Neil Bloom. I am thrilled to be joined by the co founders of Patient Partner. Hey Patrick, George, thanks for joining the pod.

Thanks Neil. Thanks for having us.

Absolutely, absolutely. I am thrilled to catch back up with you guys. We were just saying it's been either a whole Covid or a part of COVID Either way those are dog years. Now it's a crazy time but do you want to give us a quick overview of what Patient Partner is?

Yeah, sure. Patient Partner is essentially a platform where we allow new and prospective patients to come and engage with the past patient community so, like, just think of it this way, like, you know, if you were to go through some sort of procedure and you're wanting to learn about it, you can talk with somebody who's already been down the road. And we basically have built this entire network of past patients who want to share what it's like to have XYZ procedure. And we basically handle the entire logistical side of making these two people connect and then we provide action after that. So we're a platform around community and then taking that information and then being able to act upon it.

And all of these connections are based in relatability. So we have patented IP around connecting to patients perspective and experience based off of how relatable they are to one another, to making sure that these connections are similar in nature and that these patients who are prospectively going through a treatment or procedure feel like they're talking to their future self.

Oh, super cool, super topical. Especially during COVID for people needing a community to be a part of, with all these new treatments and stuff going on. And topical to San Diego, where digital health, they're just like finding tech and health and all these intersections, that is gonna put San Diego on the map even more. So we're gonna come back to that, do a deep dive there. But let's get to know a little bit, you guys. Let's start. George, with you. Where are you from? How'd you end up down this crazy path of tech?

Well, born and raised here in San Diego, grew up actually in Claremont and then moved over closer to University City, and really kind of started, I mean, after college, I started my career in medical device sales. And, you know, a lot of people don't actually know about device sales too much, but I basically worked in operating rooms for my whole career and really helping surgeons out, making sure products were being used properly and, you know, offering guidance or, you know, more of a consultant in some situations. And I loved it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was an amazing job, super rewarding, very fun, and like somewhat thrilling in the sense where, you know, you're in the operating room and you're in some pretty complex cases and you get to provide value. And that is honestly where I saw the opportunity in starting this company is, you know, looking at patients and talking with patients and hearing their stories and understanding where they come from and being able to, you know, talk with surgeons and physicians to figure out what exactly does that relationship look like and where are the gaps. And what it came down to is I really saw this need for helping patients Go through this surgical process and, you know, providing resources and support and kind of landed on this idea of a patient partner. And it was funny, like the first organic patient partner connection I kind of made in the wild while, you know, as a device rep, where I connected a pre op patient with a post op patient. And I saw the impact that that can have on an individual. And I remember I literally got into the car as I'm driving home and I like, I called Patrick because, you know, Pat and I have been good friends for a long time and I'm like, dude, I have a wild idea. And that's kind of where it started.

And I guess that kind of jumps into my background, how I came into the picture. Well, it's funny, I mean, I'm born and raised San Diego as well. Also grew up in Claremont. George and I grew up two houses down from one another in the same neighborhood. And so unlike George, I went to, I traveled around a little bit in my career. So I went, I was in New York, I was in Dallas, and found my way back to San Diego. I've worked in consumer technology my entire career and always on prioritizing platform side. So scaling out platforms, bringing them to market across just a variety of different industries. I mean, banking, debt, real estate, law, oil and gas, and now finally healthcare. I feel like it's like all of the legacy industries that you could possibly tack onto one another. But yeah, I mean, I remember George giving me this call and explained to me what he had happened. It was so funny. I mean, in correlating to all these other consumer technology platforms as we think about it, I mean, all a platform is at the end of the day is taking things that are happening in the world and putting into one single place. You know, as you mentioned, these conversations are happening everywhere, right? They're happening with our friends, our families, our neighbors, you know, anyone we can find. And, you know, I saw it as an unbelievable opportunity, especially in an industry where, you know, you can make such a, such an impact. I mean, I don't think there's any other industry where you can impact an individual more than their health.

Yeah, it's really true, especially in a way like a consumer approach. Right. There's actually not a lot of consumer tech in San Diego, but healthcare is that where you actually can get direct feedback from the customer, the end user, which is anyone who's in the healthcare system, which is literally all of us.

That's like, our quote is like, we're all patients at some point in our lives, and it's funny.

I mean, it's the largest consumer group in the entire world. Like, it's everybody.

Yeah. But it's funny to think about too. Like, even myself and Patrick is guilty of this too. We are co founders of this company and we still have challenges navigating the.

Health just a week ago, right. Like where, like, literally it is still in the present, where I'm like, I still cannot do this. Right. And. But that's amazing because that just shows the opportunity, like, wow, I can't do this. We need to bring that into our platform. Right. Like, that is a pain point for patients today. And so it's just like there's so much opportunity. I mean, it's. It's kind of. It's been a fun ride.

So take us through the ride a little bit because people, you know, a lot of people have ideas and only some take the leap. Like, what did that look like after the call that you made of Spark? What did you do to march forward to kind of get through of starting and getting to here?

Neil, I'm not sure how much time you got, so I'll kind of speed through a lot of the earlier parts because honestly, the earlier parts was very much trying to figure out product market fit, figure out where we can actually provide value and where we can actually draw business from it.

And a lot of business in Office Depot going through dry erase markers and, you know, erasers themselves on a seven foot level.

Yeah, we pivoted, I think six times.

We like hearing some pivots, especially business model, you know, what you thought, how you learned about it. Take us through one pivot.

Oh, God. Okay, so this one's kind of funny. You know, one of the things that we initially thought is how can we make the medical device rep more accessible from the patient perspective. So, like, this is drawn specifically from my experience, you know, as a device rep. I knew all of the surgeons in San Diego. I knew who was really good at what they did. Somebody who you should probably avoid. And, you know, friends and family, especially my parents, they'd always like, connect me with, with their friends. Hey, this person is getting a knee replacement. Can you help them out? And I did. And I like, I love doing that, hopping on the phone, walking them through, like, oh, which doctor are you going to? Which approach are they going to take? Here are the questions that you should ask them. And every time I got off the phone that these, these people would be like, oh, my God, like, I'm so thankful I got to talk with you. Like, I didn't even Know, like these questions existed. I didn't even know like all like anything that you just talked about. I didn't even know, like, that was something you could bring up. And I was like, hey, there's several of me's out there. And so one of the, one of the ideas is like, hey, how can we make the sales rep more accessible to patients?

And thinking that, oh, you know, we can connect patients to the rep to ask these questions. And you know, again, because I was at Compass at the time when we first started this, which is, you know, tech, and I was like, oh, well, you know, device rip sounds an awful lot like a real estate broker. Unlike in real estate, healthcare has a tremendous amount of regulatory and compliance gates.

We went to one of the largest device companies here in San Diego and we sat down in their boardroom, we pitched them this idea and they're all like, wow, this is, this makes so much sense. Yeah, but we're never going to do this. And we're like, rug, why? And like, you see like the one legal guy in the background just being like, like, not a chance. And so we were like, okay, like, clearly this is not going to work. And so we had to pivot from that. I mean, candidly, what it came down to is like, there's a compliance and ethical side. Things that candidly, we just didn't look too much for too deep into.

But I think like, such an important note to take is like, with every single pivot, it's only, it's only purposeful if you have something to take away from it.

Yeah.

And what we took away from it was, is that it does make a whole heck of a lot of sense to connect patients with people who know about this information. And so if you take a step back and think, well, who else has this information? Well, it's the people who've already been through it. Right. The people who can speak directly to what those experiences are like. And perhaps they have even more information because they're living through it not just when they have the procedure, but afterwards.

So is there some sort of incentive model to get them to kind of stay in the loop and after a procedure and that kind of. Or take us through that kind of piece.

Yeah. So I mean, from the mentor side of things, this was actually a pretty cool business problem we had to solve initially. A lot of the mentors are very altruistic and actually all of them are, you know, they go, look, George, I want to like, just help out the person that I once was. We love that aspect of all the mentors. But in some situations, we were looking at it, we're like, holy crap. Like, Dave did like 30 conversations this month. You know what I mean? That's a lot of time. And we. I remember calling, you know, like, hey, dude, like, what can we do? Can we, like, give you some sort of consideration? And he's like, george, look, man, I didn't sign up for this to make money. I just wanted to help out the guy that I once was. And it was like a moment where Pat and I looked at each other like, this is too cool not to do something about. And so what we decided as a company, we go, look, how about this, Dave? For every conversation you take on our platform, well, donate to a charity that you choose. And it's this, like, full circle of giving back now where. And it keeps. It keeps mentors engaged, it keeps mentors.

Engaged, but then it also brings in a whole new population of patients and also, you know, potential partners for us, as, you know, with some of the charities and foundations. I mean, we are literally an exclusive partner for patient experience, which is some of these people, they're like, how did you even do that? These people don't partner with anybody, you know, outside of the industry. And so it's allowed us to be able to tap into this, like, altruistic community. I mean, build it truly organically.

Interesting. So maybe take us through also the experience for, you know, someone who's got a surgery coming up. What's that like today? And what are you kind of trying to build towards?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite questions. We talk with patients every day, and we're trying to understand what are the biggest hurdles that they're currently going through and how can we help solve that in a very simplistic manner. And we are continuously adding features to our product to make patients lives easier. That is simply what we're trying to do. And, you know, some of the things that we initially were approached with, obviously, one, it was like the emotional support and understanding what it's like to have this procedure. Two is actually we're really heavily revolved around insurance. Making sure, hey, is the doctor I'm going to go see. What's the obligation that I'm going to have if I go see this? Are they in network, out of network? What does that mean to me? You know, we did a lot of data gathering on. On how much people understand about health insurance, and it was pretty eye opening, man. It's, you know, found out, like, roughly 60% of patients really don't know much if at all about what their health insurance is and what's a deductible, you know, what is out of pocket, Max? Like, what are those things actually mean to you? And so what we have then launched is this brand new insurance feature where, hey, we're going to remove all of the noise, we're going to show you people who are in network, we're going to give very clear understanding. If you go see this doctor, what does your financial obligation look like? And all of this is just trying to like piece together this. Like, I want to make patients, when patients come to our platform, I want them to like, have this sigh of relief. They're like, oh my God, finally it's someplace where I understand what's happening. I have a lot of different options to choose from. And I not only get to like go and look at the doctors from a, from a profile perspective, shit, I can even take an even deeper dive. Hey, I want to talk to that, that, that surgeon's past patient.

I think it's, it's like there are so many different aspects of healthcare and it's all scattered, right? If you ask anybody who has to prepare for a procedure, a treatment, hey, you just found this out, what are you going to go do? You ask 10 people, you're going to get 10 different answers. All 10 of them are going to be in different locations and go down a completely different pathway and be lost at the end of the day. And it is just unfathomable to me that with something as important as health, right, like, there is no simplistic, guided step, right, that provides direction to you as a patient. It is, it's almost as if this industry has been created to overcomplicate, overcomplicate itself to patients so that it can do whatever it needs to do. And the reality is, is that we, you know, we were talking about this earlier, is that as consumers across every other vertical, right, we have become empowered to make our own decisions and the industry has had to meet us where we are. They had to accommodate that. And historically there's only been one hospital or one health care system in area and they're the only game in town. Patients had to go there and they say, you know what, the patients have to come to us. But the reality is in this ever changing environment, like every other industry has gone through, companies have had to learn and adapt to the consumer demands or else they'll sink or swim. And so now in health care, it's not that the patients need us, is that they need the patients. And so Just like following every industry, the more we can empower the patients to make good decisions and provide them with a simplistic, step by step process. I mean, that is how you have the industry come to you. That is where you provide value, is if you focus on the patients.

I love this, like, correlation because I think it makes it really easy to understand. So, like, a couple months ago, like, my. One of my good friends on LinkedIn said they got promoted, right? And so, like, it popped up on my feed and I was like, what the hell? Like, I call them up, like, dude, you just got promoted. Like, that's amazing. Congratulations. We need to celebrate. He's like, oh, yeah, George. It literally happened like two hours ago. And I was like, yeah, no, why didn't you tell me?

Right?

And it was this, like, moment. I'm like, oh, my God, how funny is this? Like, before he told any of his friends, he went on LinkedIn and he said like, hey, I got promoted. And that is kind of the behavior I'm hoping to get patients to do on our platform, where they go, they leave the doctor's office, then they get diagnosed with a certain condition, and I want them to come to their account at our platform, add that condition to their profile, and then be able to learn everything that they need to know about what this condition is being able. And it's all revolved around patient data on everything of what patients are doing on our platform. Imagine if you were to get diagnosed with something and you go, you add that to your profile and immediately something pops up about the most common treatments for this, and you get to look at what patients are doing, what treatments, and you can click into that and be able to go even further and say, okay, this patient went through this treatment. I want to talk to this patient. Perfect, we'll set that up. Oh, even better. Like, oh, this patient lives in San Diego. What surgeon did they go to or which physician did they go to?

And being able to compare yourself to the journey they went down and be able to measure, like, what do I want my outcome to be?

Yeah.

Because this information is accessible to only if you have that network. And healthcare is about creating that access to care. Right. And making it personalized at the exact same time. That's how you change that paradigm of empowering patients. Almost like, you know, again, as consumers have been empowered across every other industry.

I get like, credit karma points guy kind of vibes initially of other industries that work. But I also get the Yelp review of surgeons and that kind of piece. Where is that? Is that eventually, where some, like, rankings and reviews are going to eventually happen so that you are matched with the best.

It's funny, like, when you say Yelp and reviews and stuff like that, there's one feature that or one element of the physician profile that we've already implemented, and it's actually. We call it the bedside manner score. And basically we just talk to their past patients and we say, hey, on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, if you were to rate your doctor, you know, one being warm and friendly and cuddly or whatever it is, and then 10 being like, straight to the point, they're not going to beat around the bush, like, where do they land? And it's funny to see how many people really care about that score.

It's a huge, huge misunderstanding from, I think, from a lot of perspectives. Like, that matters a ton to patients. And there are Yelp. You can go on Google reviews and you can go on health grades and other things, and you can see kind of a general review of a doctor, but you can't understand who they are. Right. And you don't understand anything more than what a star tells you. And so I think that it's like, let's look at reviews in a different way. Let's look at, like, in a different way where let's take the patients, the testimonials, let's bring them to life, make them accessible. That can be your review. Let's look at who you are as an individual and how you operate in your outcomes.

Right.

That's your review. Because many times I think we can all agree to this, is that there's so much negative confirmation bias out there in the world, and that's something that, if not controlled the right way, can really escalate and get out of hand.

Yep.

Good. That's smart. Awesome, man. I love just what you're building, just this whole engine together. And then the give back piece is huge as well. I'm guessing you're live. Obviously, it's being used. Where are you headed from here?

Well, it's funny, when we initially started, we kind of started in the domain that I knew the best, orthopedics. And it was so refreshing and rewarding to see how accepting the industry was. Meaning, we started in orthopedics, we're doing our thing. We're still super tiny. I don't understand how anybody found us. You know, all of a sudden I'm getting calls from, hey, I see we're doing ortho. Can you do this in bariatrics? And on the phone, I'm like, hold on one second. Like, mute. Like, what the hell is bariatrics?

You know what bariatrics is? I'm not the healthcare guy.

Like, googling bariatric. I'm like, oh, weight loss. Are like, yeah, yeah, we'd absolutely do that. Yeah. But, like, that has happened so many times now. Like, fertility companies have come to us.

And called us, like, fertility clinical trials, transplants. I mean, you think about the. This, like, what we're doing is applicable across all of healthcare. And there's one simple reason why every single healthcare journey is emotional and every single one of them is personalized to that individual. And the industry knows that. And they know that patients want that because they have not found out a way in order to really figure out how to culminate those. To harness that.

Yeah.

To harness the power of that connectivity.

Because the patient experience is so disjointed. Right. I mean, it's the front office person calling you to fill out forms when you get here, and it's the blue shield when you call them to, like, argue about a bill. Right. That's our entire experience besides with our doctor. So you standardizing that and managing the expectation.

Every single one of these entities, whether it be insurance companies, health cares, the surgeon, like, sorry, a hospital or a surgeon, they all have their own experience. They're all in different places, they're all scattered, all different and not clear. Why is there not just one, One experience, one place where you can do all of it?

Totally. That's patient partner. There you go. I love it. So take us through kind of, you know, where you're. We know the big vision, you know, dominate all of healthcare. What's the company size right now and where you. Where are you guys going to be within a year?

Yeah, so we, we just hired on our 12th employee, and so we're super, super excited about that. You know, it's funny, I appreciate you asking a year, because when people ask like, oh, we're going to be three to five years, my answer is simply like, there's no way I'm going to tell you anything that's remotely close to what, what it's going to be. But honestly, I mean, for me personally, I look at it and say, you know, for us, it's. It's creating that awareness where patients start to come here and say, wow, like, this is the first step I want to take in my journey. Right. This is something that I can trust. This is something that has been normalized in my, in my journey. And for us, you know, as much breadth as we can, as we can grow into. Growing into clinical trials, going into women's health, growing into transplants, going into cosmetic, all these different verticals. I mean, being able to scale into that creates such an immense amount of awareness and opportunity in front of us.

Yeah. I mean, to tack onto that, like, one of our missions is like, mission statements, is like ultimately bringing all parties of health care together in one place. And that is truly the. The reason why we built this is like, I want physicians to participate. I want hospitals to participate, patients to participate, industry to participate, insurance companies, everybody, when bringing them all to the table. And at the end of the day, it's just having them circle around the patient and make the patient feel incredibly special and giving them information and a service and resources to help them make better decisions. And having the place where they. Everybody comes together in order to. Ultimately, everybody wins. It's like the funniest thing. Like, I say that to people and they kind of laugh, and I'm like, no, like, really, like all these parties, like, if they use the platform appropriately, they have the ability to win so that nobody loses. And that's. That's what I really get super excited about. It's like if you put the patient first and you give, and it's just like any other industry, any other consumer technologies, like, you give them information and they will act upon it. And so providing that information is like the first step.

Absolutely. Well, we're stoked for you guys. Congrats on building to date. And couldn't do it in a better place in San Diego, where the biotech and healthcare scene is alive but needs a consumer leader. And here we go. So we love it. You guys both being San Diego natives, you've got your own inside scoop on the local taco scene, too. So we got to know, what's your favorite spot?

Oh, yeah.

So I'm going to say two.

You only get one.

I thought.

We'll give you a few.

You have, like, a runner up.

All right, so Ramiro's, obviously, is up there in pb. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God.

Let me. Let me clarify. It's the best tasting. Like, our favorite time is not what happens afterwards.

It's.

It's how you feel afterwards.

It's the best tasting. I'm telling you. I. I've been to that place three in the morning, four in the morning. I've been there at 6am I've been there at pretty much any hour of the day. They are still open.

It's the same People.

They are always open. And Christmas, every day, Thanksgiving. So that place has a special place in my heart. Just because spent a ton of time, pb. That is where I go. And I know there's safety, there's a safe haven, and I get comfort there. And then the next is. I'm sure this has probably been said a handful of times, but taco stand, I mean, all time. If the line didn't exist, I'd be there all the time.

Totally. Yep. We've all got a taco for a different time, different place.

That's very good.

We all have our coffee.

Different tacos for different. Different times.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like Romero's, though, is at any time, so.

24, 7.

All of the times.

Exactly. Right.

Pat, how about you?

So my favorite taco place has probably never been set on here. And it's in Claremont. Used to be right up the street from our house. It's a place called Maritza's. And there's only one of them. It's not a chain. It's been family owned for two generations. And like, you go to this place, they're only open. They're the exact opposite of Romero's. They're barely ever open, let me tell you. But when they are, you're waiting. Yeah. Like, it is. It's real. It's like, like owned by this family. They will not. They've had offers to like, sell out, franchise, bottle their salsas, all these things, and they're just like, nope, all cash. It's like those memes where you see like that old hometown, like, restaurant with like the placard menu where they have.

To like plug in the letters and each and the menus up on the board.

That's what it is and has never been changed. Like, you can tell.

Has it changed for inflation at all? Yeah. Great.

Why do I keep going back? Like, that's my, like, that's my all time when I'm going there. You either know something really good happened in my life or something really bad.

Absolutely. I love it. No, it has not been mentioned. We're adding it to our taco database as we speak. It's a great one. Well, thanks, guys. This was great. We're super excited for what you guys are building and more to come. We will be hearing a lot from you both, I am sure, going forward. And thanks again for being on the pod, but also for building this because it's needed.

Awesome.

Thanks, Dale. Appreciate that. Thanks for having us.

Thanks for joining us on the tacos and tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem.

Big shout out to School of Rap.

For our rad entry and this podcast is edited and mixed by Patrick Norton at citizenrecording.com you can find Neil Bloom on Twitter at Neil Bloom and on.

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