Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:09:19 · Jeremy Gurewitz
[00:09:19] S0: Yeah. So Solace connects people to health care advocates. So we're a marketplace for health care advocates that's covered by insurance. Most people pay little to no cost at all. Right now, we're with Medicare, although potentially when we launch this podcast or we'll be announcing soon that we're gonna be launching commercial insurance as well. So if you have insurance through your work or even have purchased insurance in the marketplace, it's very likely that you'll be able to get Solace as well, which is something that's so incredibly exciting. The story behind Solace, and I'm sorry if I'm stealing your question that you're going to ask, but I think we've kind of alluded to it, I mentioned my mom. She unfortunately passed away from pancreatic cancer. And I got to see firsthand just how difficult it was for her to access care, even though she was a doctor, even though my family is based out of New York and had access to some of the best institutions out here. The experience was just really, really challenging. And I think after she passed away, I wanted to do something that would help people. And as I spoke to people, what just came out over and over again was how difficult it was for people to get access to care. This is something that even as I've spoken to people and even when I was fundraising, no investor ever denied that this was a huge problem. I think sometimes, I don't know what type of pitches you guys see. Oftentimes, there's probably some things you're like, Is that even really a problem? This one was a huge problem. I think people always had the question of like, could this work? Could we get it covered by insurance? Could this actually make a difference? But it was very clear to me after speaking to healthcare advocates and discovering them and seeing the impact on their patients that this was something that could have a real impact. I would speak to a patient and they would say to me, I actually had a really good experience with The US healthcare system, which is something you would never hear ever. Even with people that have the means, have the connections, there were always friction points, but healthcare advocates made it better. And so what we do is we've built a giant platform, you know, thousands and thousands of advocates, connect patients to advocates.
00:11:13 · Jeremy Gurewitz, Alexa von Tobel
And we've also built the tools and the software and even dare I say, the AI technology to help advocates be super, super effective. And I don't wanna... I'm sure we'll talk more about AI, but overall, we've just built this thing that just enables people to get the best possible health care and the best possible health care experience. And we've helped tens of thousands of people already. And we've been really lucky that a lot of people have found significant value in it. [00:11:36] S1: Jeremy, I want to go back. When Charlotte and I met you years ago before your series A, you were clearly a guy on a mission. It was very... Just meeting you, that was clear. And I remember asking one question, and I'm I'm gonna see if you remember what you said. But I said to you, Jeremy, why are you gonna be able to succeed? Like, why you against everybody else that could go try to note this? And do you remember what you said? [00:12:06] S0: Yeah. I remember this one. It's because I care more than anybody else very clearly.
00:12:06 · Jeremy Gurewitz, Alexa von Tobel, Charlotte Ross
[00:12:06] S0: Yeah. I remember this one. It's because I care more than anybody else very clearly. [00:12:11] S1: And as you said it, it gave me chills. And you were like, I am going to be successful on this journey because I will literally care more than anybody else on the planet that can build this. And Charlotte and I both, like, let that meeting, and we were like, that's the founder you wanna back. That is an inspired founder to her squad. So I just... I had to quickly say that as somebody who meets hundreds of entrepreneurs a month, that it couldn't have been truer, and it was exactly the right answer, and it's the most sincere answer. And, you know, years later, we still feel it. [00:12:42] S0: I appreciate that so much. And thank you. [00:12:45] S2: Yeah. And I would also say, like, I think for me, the thing that resonated most was like every single person that you share solace with and like explain what what solace does. Everyone has had that moment where they're like, Oh, God, I could have used solace. And I think actually right around the time we were investing in the company, one of my best friends was diagnosed with cancer. He is now fine. But it was the first time he's very well off, well resourced, has the right connection to the right doctors. And even still, it was extremely hard for him to kind of get the care he needed and really opened my eyes to just how big of a pain point this is that you're navigating. Could you kind of maybe walk through a few examples of how patients are using Solace?
00:13:31 · Jeremy Gurewitz
[00:13:31] S0: Yeah, for sure. So we do a basic intake. So we actually have a team of physicians. So people, you meet with a physician. They confirm your diagnosis. They confirm your eligibility for advocacy in accordance with kind of, like, the rules and regulations for advocacy. And then once you connect with an advocate, that's your advocate. And so you work with the same person longitudinally. And that's one of the things that we've found is super, super valuable is you're building this relationship with someone. They know who you are. It's not like you're calling a random phone number and, you know, you're getting all these people. You have to explain what's going on. You have your advocate. So that's kind of like the first piece that I think is really worth calling out. Once you're with an advocate, you have an initial conversation, you explain what's happened, what you're going for. And then one of the most important things, and this is kind of like we talk about in Solace all the time, is we have a no homework ethos. So in healthcare, one of the things that makes it so painful for people is like you go somewhere and they're like, here's this 27 step thing that we need you to do. And that's not how we operate. The advocate works on behalf of the patient. So you meet with them. And then once you share the situation, then the advocate gets to work. And it can be ranging from something super simple. Like oftentimes we hear, can't get access to a provider. I can't get access to the right doctor. Something simple, but like this happens all the time. And certainly even in New York finding a primary care physician incredibly difficult. And like especially if you go down the list of specialists or even if you're not sure right way to go, that's actually a very difficult thing. And that's the most simplest thing. It then kind of progresses significantly. Sometimes we have people who are handling chronic illnesses and they haven't been able to find the right way to manage it, or they're having challenges on medication management side, or they need to understand the care plan. And then obviously, in many scenarios, people are dealing with life or death situations. Perhaps you've just been diagnosed with cancer, perhaps there's an ongoing serious illness and you're being asked to make a very critical medical decision.
00:15:29 · Jeremy Gurewitz
And so while obviously the advocate isn't your doctor, the thing the advocate does is help you understand the situation, try and get you the best information possible, and help you lay out some of the different pathways that might occur if you're being asked to undergo different type of treatment protocols. We also have kind of all sorts of... Sometimes I call advocacy deals with the sum of all edge cases. And like we have one... This is just one example that I've sometimes shared with people where we had a patient that came in and they needed a kidney transplant. And so they were in the hospital and they were joking with a friend and said, couldn't wait to have a beer when this is all over. And a nurse overheard this and wrote in the chart that this guy was an alcoholic and he got kicked off the organ transplant list. Oh my gosh. And so imagine if you're in that situation, you're a regular person, you're very sick, clearly you need an organ transplant list. Like you get this notice, like how do you even deal with that? Very, very difficult. And so luckily, came to Solace, connected them with an advocate and went through this incredibly cumbersome process to change the chart. Changed the chart in the hospital and then it turned out, well, that's great. That still doesn't get you back on the list. So then they had to engage with the National Organ Transplant Registry, took a month, got him back on the list, but it was actually now they're on at the end of the list. So no, that doesn't work. This kidney is going to pass away. And so another month passed and eventually got him back on the place on the list, ended up getting a kidney, ended up saving his life. And so while that's an extreme example, there are countless cases where bureaucracy, poor processes end up resulting in far worse health care outcomes for people than they would otherwise get. And health care advocates solve the problems that people face.
00:17:07 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:17:07] S1: Jeremy, said almost differently, you at Solace are helping people in the scariest days and hours of their life. Yes. I have chills even just thinking about it. I mean, it's the scariest minutes of people's life where the decisions that they are making really matter, and most people getting health diagnosis aren't doctors themselves. Right? And why is the system so broken there? Can you lay... And and and I really don't fully understand this answer. Why is it so hard to get the right care at such a critical time where it's literally life or death dependent?