Tia — a startup offering hybrid main care, OB/GYN providers and psychological well being care to girls — introduced its third well being system partnership on Thursday. The corporate is now working with Cedars-Sinai, along with UCSF Well being and CommonSpirit Well being.
Based in 2017 and based mostly in San Francisco, Tia is “a medical house for ladies,” CEO Carolyn Witte mentioned in an interview.
“We’re the anti-point answer that goals to defragment well being care for ladies by integrating all of their bodily, reproductive and psychological well being care wants right into a one-stop store and integrative mannequin,” she declared.
Witte described the providers that Tia gives as “main care plus.” Below the corporate’s virtual-forward care mannequin, about 80% of sufferers have their first go to by way of telehealth, she mentioned. Throughout these first visits, sufferers sometimes obtain Tia’s complete well being examination, which mixes a main care annual go to, OB/GYN annual go to and psychological well being screening. These complete well being exams final about half-hour and are performed by a Tia clinician, normally a nurse practitioner.
For Tia sufferers, their care journey normally continues in particular person after which continues just about once more.
Girls can obtain in-person care at considered one of Tia’s seven bricks-and-mortar clinics — and so they can get an appointment inside per week, versus being on a months-long waitlist to go to a main care doctor, Witte identified. Sufferers normally get in-person care once they want hands-on providers, reminiscent of bloodwork, ultrasounds, pap smears or pelvic exams. Tia additionally gives further wellness providers, reminiscent of acupuncture, which might be recognized to alleviate points like anxiousness, melancholy and having an irregular cycle.
After an in-person appointment, Tia sufferers sometimes proceed their care journey just about. Through telehealth, they’ll assessment lab take a look at outcomes, discuss with clinicians about their ongoing main care wants, and obtain prescriptions for issues like UTI remedy or contraception.
“We go deeper than a typical main care supplier, giving girls their first and solely sex-specific main care supplier,” Witte mentioned. “There actually isn’t any different sex-specific main care supplier in the marketplace, which is admittedly essential as a result of 50% of ladies don’t have a main care doctor and are overusing or mis-utilizing specialty care in consequence or delaying preventative well being care.”
Many ladies find yourself utilizing their OB/GYN as their main care supplier, which is problematic as a result of OB/GYNs aren’t educated to offer main care, she identified.
However there are at all times going to be girls’s well being wants that Tia can’t meet, Witte acknowledged. For instance, the startup doesn’t ship infants, have in vitro fertilization providers or supply cardiology care.
“Girls have extra frequent and sophisticated wants than males. And so girls bear the brunt of fragmentation extra — bouncing from specialist to specialist to specialist,” Witte mentioned.
This concern is why Tia works with well being methods. By partnering with Cedars-Sinai, the corporate combines its main care with the well being system’s specialty care to cut back fragmentation. This strategy connects the dots between girls’s main and specialty care wants — as Witte places it, Tia’s partnership mannequin ensures “baton passes as an alternative of drops.”
Tia sells its platform on to customers and accepts insurance coverage “for the overwhelming majority” of its providers, Witte declared. And every time the startup companions with a well being system, Tia will get entry to extra insurance coverage contracts to assist extra girls entry its providers, she mentioned.
One of many fundamental objectives Tia has for its partnership with Cedars-Sinai is to extend entry to main care for ladies within the Los Angeles space. In collaboration with the well being system, Tia just lately opened its second in-person clinic within the metro space, positioned in Santa Monica. The companions will open further clinics this 12 months in Pasadena, Studio Metropolis and Culver Metropolis.
To measure the success of the partnership, Tia and Cedars-Sinai will observe the proportion of ladies who’re engaged of their preventative well being care. They are going to have a look at metrics reminiscent of the speed at which girls are receiving screenings for cervical most cancers, breast most cancers, anxiousness and melancholy.
Photograph: FotografiaBasica, Getty Photographs
