Redwood Family Health Center

Patients are sick of waiting 37 minutes to see their doctor. They expect a warm relationship. They want time with their doctor. If they don’t receive personalized care, they will find a new doctor or stop seeing one altogether.

We believe that corporate consolidation and the rapid rise in physician burnout are the two main drivers of these trends. Corporate-owned primary care centers operate on a “patient as a number” mentality. Their physicians are forced to see as many as they can in a day and spend their nights entering data in charts. 

Physicians who own their own practices are saddled with all the work it takes to run their business that they have less time to practice medicine. Some forecast a nationwide PCP shortage of up to 55,000 by 2033. 

Their rate of burnout is the highest in medicine. 2 out of every 3 primary care physicians say that their stress levels are higher than ever. And 4 out of 5 of PCP families feel that stress at home.

Despite all this bad news – the primary care market is growing at a 3.02% CAGR, which doesn’t factor in a post-COVID surge or the effects of consolidation. Why? Primary care doctors are a community’s first line of defense. They are the key drivers of optimal public health.

But unless the experience of going to the doctor changes, it will turn away the generation who will need them the most – millennials. As of 2019, there was a staggering gap between Gen Xers who have a primary care physician (91%) and millennials who opt to go straight to specialists or urgent care (68%).

Patient engagement in the primary care setting is critical to:

• Promoting mutual accountability and understanding between patient and provider;

• Giving patients a feeling of confidence to report both positive and negative experiences;

• Increases patient concordance with mutually agreed care management plans;

• Improving health outcomes;

• Advances learning and improvement;

• Reduces adverse events.

 

This is what the market wants. And it’s not what the market gets. In fact, primary care practices that deliver a personalized experience are extremely rare. That’s why we started Redwood Family Health Center.

 

Powered by automation and continually iterating thanks to AI, the care coordination process is managed seamlessly. The physician can focus on making the most of their patient visit.  The patients LOVE their experience and treat us like their favorite retail store – a part of their lifestyle, where they are frequent and loyal visitors.

 

We design our spaces to feel like an art gallery that just so happens to feature a medical practice. Beautiful lobbies, art adorning our walls, no elevator music, no packed waiting rooms. Just a lovely, streamlined visit to your favorite doctor.

We offer four key value propositions:

1) Unlimited convenience - Informed by a retail mindset that offers in-person, virtual, and telehealth, we serve insurance, government, and self-pay clients and have subscription options for the under and uninsured

2) AI/ML and Six Sigma optimized operations - Six-sigma black belts oversee the AI and automation tools that govern the process from patient booking to follow-ups ensuring continuity and relieving physicians of admin work

3) Ideal vendor partner - From our lab company to our pharmacy, our process and philosophy help us secure extremely favorable contracts and we pass those savings onto our patients

4) Bulletproof for growth - Our proven, streamlined operational model is built to grow up and out – through acquisition, organic growth, and licensing

 

1. Venkata Vallury MD – Founder and CEO - Dr. V arrived at this model for healthcare by force. His loyal patients on Chicago’s south side were sick of all the hoops they had to jump through to see him at a hospital-owned clinic. They found him a more convenient location where he opened one of the first physician-owned clinics in Chicago which was wildly successful until burnout set in.

He’s also served as Medical Director for Cook County, Illinois. He makes sure our governmental partners get the most out of our partnerships.

2. Visalakshi Vallury MD, PhD – Chief Clinical Officer - Dr. Visala has been practicing for over two decades – co-founding the practice on the southwest side of Chicago with her husband. Her academic approach to medicine is heavy on research, active listening, and educating her patients so that lifestyle changes can be the first form of treatment whenever possible. Previously at Baylor, Scott, & White, she saw waste in the clinical setting firsthand. When she left, her patients followed her to Redwood.

3. Jerry Blow – Chief Operations Officer - Jerry previously oversaw global risk for Bank of America. In addition, he oversaw call center operations. What does that mean for Redwood? He removes waste and bloat and oversees the design of a process that must be replicable at scale. His keen eye is what scrutinizes every step in our caregiving process to remove excess, mitigate risk, ensure an exceptional patient experience, and liberate our physicians to practice medicine.

4. Anand Vallury – Co-Founder, Chief Strategy Officer - Anand’s first job was working for his parents’ clinic. There he saw firsthand the transformative power of medicine. He also saw all the waste, inefficiency, and frustrations that led to high levels of stress that culminated in the practice closing. After building successful ventures in the energy and art sectors, his father’s simple request to “open me a clinic” at the onset of the pandemic was the spark that started Redwood.

5. Natasha Vallury – Chief Branding Officer - Natasha is responsible for the vibe. She is the author of our renowned brandbook. She is the visual artist who decorates our walls. And she is the linguist who crafts the messaging that aims to make our patients “Feel better.” Her design and brand voicing garner rave reviews from our patients because it makes them feel valued to be in such a warm, inviting, and tastefully decorated space. 

We have two locations – in Farmer’s Branch, TX, and the flagship in McKinney, TX along with an administrative center that is being developed into a flex clinic for overflow and ancillary services.

 

We’ve been open for just over two years and in that time we’ve had to overcome quite a bit:

 

1. To address the rapid drop in patient visits during the pandemic, we partnered with our local government to host health fairs and clinics to drive up awareness of things we can do to manage our personal health during a challenging time;

2. For the large underinsured and uninsured populations in our market and for SMBs who struggle with the rising cost of healthcare as an employee benefit, we created two affordable subscription plans that can save subscribers thousands of dollars per year in costs and provide coverage for nearly every primary care health need they may have;

3. We were asked to consult on rescuing a distressed practice and we later acquired it. Within 30 days, it went from 2.5 stars on google and a disheveled appearance to 5-star rating and a full turnover to meet the Redwood brand guidelines;

4. That rescued clinic bid for and beat out some of the largest healthcare systems in North America for a municipal contract with the City of Farmer’s Branch – a contract they have since renewed and written for us a glowing letter of recommendation;

5. We have suffered at the hands of less than honorable vendors who collected on but refused to pay out on insurance compensation for prior patient visits – in response, we began to develop our own internal payment processing service that not only collects faster but uses pattern recognition technology to help us better project our incoming revenue;

6. In response to patient requests, we were able to get our physicians certified as civil surgeons so that immigration physicals can be performed at either location to serve a growing constituency;

7. We partnered with LabCorp and CareFirst Pharmacy to reduce the cost of labs and prescriptions and turnaround time for fulfillment to save our patients thousands of dollars per year on fees and lost time;

8. We partnered with Vitality Bowls to launch a Redwood Smoothie that is designed to serve health-conscious patrons just about everything they need vitamin and mineral wise to get a strong start to their day;

9. We launched our own line of supplements – again responding to what we recognize as patient needs for vitamins and other supplements – and have found local vendors who are willing to stock and promote them;

10. We created a training program for all new staff so they can quickly be onboarded into our process and free up our administrative staff to focus on new locations and the licensing of our platform to distressed primary care practices in our region.

To date, we have been entirely self-funded. We’ve paid heavy costs to get over the initial humps, twists, and turns and navigate us now to calmer waters where our process is running more smoothly, revenue is more predictable, and we can now more confidently project revenue.

 

Being self-funded, however, is no longer a viable path for us to now grow our business. We need to hire further staff to support a fast-growing patient base at both our locations.

 

We have identified several locations for expansion – through licensing our platform, acquiring distressed practices (and the real estate they sit on), or opening new locations from the ground up. Now that our process is smooth and our value proposition is proven, we’re ready to scale quickly to meet the growing demand for our services.

 

To accomplish this, we’re asking for $7,400,000.00

 

Contact us to virtually tour our space or meet us in person to see how we put our plans into action and how we intend to lower your cost of capital and generate a rapid ROI.