Name: Meridian Springs Primary Care
Price range: $

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bhavana Rao.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am a family physician by training. I did my residency at the Conroe Family Residency Program. I work at the Methodist Willowbrook as a hospitalist. Over the last year, I got interested in a new healthcare business model called Direct Primary Care. As you know, healthcare in America is collapsing. We have the greatest healthcare technologies in the world but our healthcare delivery system is broken. So I wanted to explore this new model further, something that could transform American healthcare.

At the time, my husband was pursuing his MBA in Mays Business School, Texas A&M. When I mentioned the new model, he researched it for a couple of days and was very excited to make it his capstone project. Over the last one year, he researched the business model. We interviewed a lot of direct primary care practices across the country. He analyzed and modeled every aspect of the business. Ultimately, we found its value proposition so compelling that we decided to invest in our own startup clinic.

We soft launched the startup clinic on 4/28 and are now about two months steadily growing the business.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been smooth at all. The biggest challenge for a startup clinic like ours is awareness. People are used to a certain way to approaching healthcare, even though it be broken, we are seeking to completely change it. It needs to be marketed so awareness increases but startup budget limits how we market.

All of our initial assumptions about the business have completely changed. We have learnt more in the last two months after launching the clinic than the whole of last one year.

Our main struggle is getting the word out about how our model of healthcare works. We are confident that as people become aware of the value of our offering, the business will grow, since we are on a tight startup budget, we are doing all the marketing ourselves. It takes a lot of time and effort and both me and my husband have our full-time day jobs as well.

Please tell us about Meridian Springs Primary Care.
Meridian Springs Primary Care is a primary care startup clinic. What we have done is simple. Our patients subscribe directly to the doctor for a flat monthly fee, $50 to $65 / month based on the age group. The patients have no limits to access and no copays per visit. We have introduced a Netflix kind of model in healthcare.

What we seek to do is make health insurance usage more in line with auto or home owner’s insurance usage. Patients no longer need to use insurance for routine primary care visits to the doctor. These kinds of visits constitute about 85% of all healthcare needs. Patients now will use health insurance like a true insurance, only for catastrophic events like hospitalizations or specialty visits.

What this does is twofold – it increases the quality of care with complete access the doctor 24/7/365 since primary care doctors no longer are constrained by the dictates of insurance industry, and at the same time patients can now move to a higher deductible insurance plans so their monthly insurance premiums decrease substantially.

We are proud to say we are the first of its kind clinic in The Woodlands and surrounding areas. We seek to disrupt the status quo of healthcare in our country today

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
I grew up in India and moved to Houston in 2005. My favorite memories from childhood always revolve around family get togethers. I have always loved having extended family and friends over to chat and have a good time. I believe food is a great uniter. I love to cook Indian curry dishes and make it a point the whole family eats together at the dinner table.

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