Our Story
In 2014, childhood friends Scott Schnell and Neil Solomon, MD, first discussed an emerging frontier in health care — telemedicine. They recognized its potential to bring quality care to many more patients, efficiently and cost-effectively. And that nowhere was this more important—or needed—than for underserved populations with complex medical and social conditions. ​
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Working as a managed care executive, Neil had seen how for all their best efforts—and resources—health plans struggled to meet the myriad needs of this population and effectively improve outcomes and control costs. Scott, being a serial entrepreneur with great passion for bringing healthcare to those who needed it most, saw an opportunity. They set out to create a company that was purpose-built to engage and serve the highest-need, most vulnerable individuals who struggle to navigate the healthcare system and are often caught in a patterns of primary care avoidance and high hospital utilization.​
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They began by reimagining the house call, using technology to bring care that is both personal and comprehensive directly to patients, wherever they are. They developed a model of in-home care that is reliable and scalable, and supported by a robust technology backbone for operations and billing. In 2015 MedZed began partnering with health plans to provide an extra layer of care for Medi-Cal members in California.​
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And they understood that improving health is not just about medical care. They intentionally created a holistic, multidisciplinary approach that weaves together medical care, social supports, and behavioral health and other services such as palliative care. The 2020 acquisition of Integra ServiceConnect brought industry-leading capabilities for finding, engaging and motivating hard-to-reach members.
"Too many people fall through the cracks of the healthcare system, and the traditional methods of reaching them just aren't enough. I wanted to figure out how we could help bridge the gap."
- Neil A. Solomon
"My ambition is nothing less than to transform care for underserved, chronically ill individuals. Delivering telemedicine with a nurse in the home means that these patients can finally receive care that is high-quality, high-touch, and personal."
- Scott Schnell
Who We Serve: Our Focus on High-Risk Populations
Our mission is to care for those members who need extra help navigating our complex health care system. They often have difficulty getting to medical appointments due to physical, psychological, or social challenges. Language and cultural barriers can create a lack of comfort and trust. These high-risk individual represent a very small share of members but consume the majority of health care resources.​
How We Are Different: Cracking the Code on Engagement
High-need individuals are often hard to find and traditional engagement efforts typically fall short for this population.​
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That’s where we come in. We deploy teams of culturally competent, locally-based Community Health Navigators (CHNs) who excel at finding and enrolling members who have not responded to previous outreach programs. ​
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Using proven engagement strategies, connections with local organizations and resources—and a lot of determination and creativity—our CHNs help health plans successfully engage more than 40% of referred members.