Solutions are created out of need; Ari Tulla experienced this firsthand when he created BetterDoctor. After his wife became seriously ill, he found himself spending countless hours scouring the state of California to find his wife the best possible medical care.
In Tulla and his wife’s case, he stated “We saw 40 different doctors [and] along the way I decided this is a pain point.”
Thanks to a $10 million round of financing, Tulla plans on helping the projected 70 million Americans that will be in need of assistance searching for additional consultants, treatment or a new physician.
BetterDoctor is not the only such service on the market, but they are the most complete offering of services. HealthGrades helps a patient select a doctor and ZocDoc will aid in the scheduling process, but neither offers the smorgasbord that BetterDoctor does.
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The data that makes up the ratings/reviews is derived from Federal health professional registries, Doximity and Yelp among other sources. It is based on physicians’ social networks, social media as well as available private and public data. The time BetterDoctor’s team put in allows users to trust the information found on the app and saves users the time and stress of searching for and validating a physician/specialist’s abilities.
A point of interest is that BetterDoctor’s basic service is a free offering. Better Doctor is allowing the highest-rated doctors to make changes to their profiles; soon a premium offering will be available charging for these services. The BetterDoctor app is currently available for iOS, but it is unclear if an Android offering is in development.
Tulla started Better Doctor with Tapio Tolvanen—a friend a previous coworker. The partnership quickly grew into a team, followed by the development uniquely functional and extremely easy to use service. With the healthcare market experience a surge of investment, not everyone will experience success but, as Tulla puts it, “You’re looking at a funnel here that is $800 billion a year,” and he believes, “There’s no one company that will own that market.”
Tulla and his team are offering something no one else in the healthcare space can match: Background information on doctors, selecting a doctor and booking an appointment all in one place. The future is bright for Tulla, the healthcare space has the demand, now it’s time for BetterDoctor to continue to deliver.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi
