Marley Medical, a virtual primary care clinic focused on people with common chronic diseases, has raised $ 9 million to launch and reimagine patient-centered pathways of care.
The seed funding round was led by Julie Yoo, General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz, and Kristin Baker Spohn, General Partner of CRV. Additional angel investors included seasoned digital health founders and CEOs.
Digital health veterans and Propeller Health alumni Chris Hogg, David Hubanks, and Joe Slavinsky founded Marley Medical in 2021 as a way to establish primary care as the foundation of chronic disease management.
“It is now clear that many common chronic diseases can and probably should be treated at home,” said Hogg, co-founder and CEO of Marley Medical. “We now have the tools available, we can measure significant clinical endpoints at home with home devices and labs, we can allow people to talk to their care team when it is convenient for them, and we can deliver medications to their homes.”
To facilitate care planning and management, Marley Medical members will be able to speak with a multidisciplinary care team 24/7, schedule face-to-face video visits, change medications and receive orders, and use laboratory devices and kits to track your health progress. In this way, everything can be done from the patient’s home, rather than in different locations.
“We make it almost impossible for people to control chronic diseases,” Hogg said. “We make them miss work or leave home for half a day to go to the doctor’s office, the pharmacy, the laboratory. It is very clear that our health system has not been built with the patient at the center.”
Each member of Marley Medical will be assigned a multifunctional telehealth care team with nurses and pharmacists, and will have the tools to manage their own conditions and track vital signs such as blood pressure.
Hogg said Marley Medical plans to work with insurers to make patients pay the same copays and out-of-pocket costs that they would pay in a traditional brick and mortar facility.
Rather than gravitate toward a cash payment environment, Marley Medical services will be considered a standard clinical offering that can be covered as an in-network benefit.
Eventually, the company wants to move to risk-based contracts or capitated agreements to reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs as much as possible, Hogg said.
“It’s crazy when you consider how much unmet need there is still around managing common chronic diseases, especially in light of new remote monitoring capabilities, emerging care team working groups, and novel payment schemes anchored in virtual attention, “Yoo said in a press release. . “We are excited to support Chris and his exceptional team in bringing a modern business and care model to patients struggling to control their ongoing health conditions.”