Practiced

About a year back, I joined One Medical, a startup-esque medical practice that’s quickly spread from San Francisco to New York, Washington D.C., Boston and Chicago. Recently, Jess joined too. This past week, both of us went in for flu shots.

The experience at One Medical is so good that I actually find it slightly confusing each time I’m there. How can they be making money doing this? Why aren’t other medical practices like this, too? But, at some level, I don’t really care. For a fairly low fee ($199 a year), I can make doctors appointments online, often for the same day; I can email with my doctor about medical questions; appointments start on time (and I mean really on time – Jess’ doctor was twelve minutes late for her 5:00pm appointment, and gave her a Starbucks gift certificate by way of apology for being ‘so behind’); and the doctors (at least the three I’ve seen so far) are knowledgable, friendly, and extremely competent. They happily take insurance. And because they collect information when you make the appointment online, I breeze in and out without even stopping to fill out the standard clipboards full of forms.

They’re not an Outlier portfolio company. But they are, to me, exactly the kind of company that’s exciting to me and Outlier. They take a common experience – going to the doctor – that’s clearly broken, and improve it so much that, as Jess did to me after her first appointment, you want to text someone just to say wow.