Welcome to the Gust Launch Founder Spotlight! Gust Launch supports a variety of exciting founders doing amazing things. We figured it was about time we start showcasing that. In this ongoing series we’ll highlight the experiences of Gust Launch founders, in their own words, as they navigate the challenges of early-stage entrepreneurship.
Want to share your story? Reach out at spotlight@gust.com.
The Founder, the company, and why we're excited
Here at Gust we're all about being proactive when running your corporate back office; it saves huge amounts of time, money, and frustration in the future. Rahul Goyal, CEO of Yubi Health, has the same philosophy when it comes to people's mental health: get ahead of things by using technology to make being proactive much easier. They've recently left their pilot phase and are signing up their first clients!
Read on to hear about some of the unique challenges they face in a complex industry as well as their recent wins in early adoption.
What's Yubi Health, and what problem is it solving?
Yubi Health is an integrative mental health and wellbeing solution utilizing epigenetics and microbiome to offer very personalized plans with life changing results.
Traditionally and from research on employee health and wellness, we see several issues with the current processes addressing mental health. Employee health and wellness solutions do not address the problems of the current mental health treatment ecosystem. Yubi Health has identified these below problems as the core aspect of its solution offering, giving it the ability to handle mental health challenges in a completely different way:
- Reactive solutions where the onus is on the employee to understand and navigate the complex healthcare system in order to seek help.
- Stigma associated with mental illness still plays a huge role in inhibiting employees seeking help.
- Given the challenging nature of the symptoms, the patient in many cases is not able to recognize that they are going through a mental health challenge. Numerous studies have found that approximately 70% of all mental illness cases go undiagnosed or under-diagnosed.
- Providers have no desire to change traditional models of care that can drive their cost up. Their reimbursements are limited and often capped by insurance companies so for them less is better. The need for care is difficult to determine unlike in a physical health problem where there are most often clear signs indicating the need to visit a provider for care.
Together these challenges drive significant healthcare costs and employer losses. Employers typically lose close to $300 billion annually due to earning losses and medical costs for behavioral health issues (~$200 billion (Kessler, et al, 2008) in indirect costs and $100 billion (Sime, 2019) in direct costs). Furthermore, people with behavioral health issues account for 57% of overall healthcare expenses which is approximately $4 trillion as identified in a recent Milliman study.
What is a unique market challenge you face?
Yubi Health is working in an extremely regulated field trying to reinvent healthcare. Furthermore, the traditional boundaries of wellness and healthcare pose additional challenges in how investors and prospects alike understand this field. The problem isn't specific to access to care but the overall methodology itself.
The traditional healthcare system is designed for sick care and our wellness side is focused on proactive yet generic approaches to a healthier lifestyle; the two seldom interact. This is where Yubi Health is trying to bring an integrated approach creating a “first mover play” across the healthcare continuum of wellness and healthcare enabling members who need help with:
- Proactively identifying and responding to issues
- Focusing on identifying the root cause of the problem
- Uncovering potential polychronic issues
- Integrating approaches and recommendations focused on driving outcomes
Where is Yubi Health in it's journey?
Yubi Health is finding strong resonance and adoption with employers, providers and community health organizations that understand some of the complex healthcare challenges and want to offer better results for their cohorts. Since going live and out of the pilot phase, Yubi Health has signed up 5 clients in provider and community health organizations. Additionally, there is a strong interest by Humana and they have recently signed a supplier agreement with Yubi Health.
What can you share about the current market opportunity?
Mental Health has garnered a lot of interest in the last 2 years and rightly so. We have seen a lot of companies raising a lot of money in the last few years focused on access to care. However, the problem we see is with the business model of these organizations which is trying to put money and resources in the traditional care models that have not worked well. Some of the problems have started to surface and as a result now we are seeing increased interest in mergers and acquisitions.
Yubi Health certainly has a unique solution and approach unlike any other organization in this market and rightly so being recognized by their clients which are steadily increasing.
How did Gust Launch help?
Gust helped us tremendously by enabling all the administrative functions for a company setup seamlessly helping us keep our focus on building out the company solution and building and executing on GTM strategy vs where founders would get caught traditionally on peripheral admin setup.
Where can I learn more about Yubi Health?
You can find more information about Yubi Health through our website, https://yubihealth.com or you can reach me at rahul.goyal@yubihealth.com
Print references
Sime, C. (2019). The Cost Of Ignoring Mental Health In The Workplace. Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17.
Kessler, R. C., Heeringa, S., Lakoma, M. D., Petukhova, M., Rupp, A. E., Schoenbaum, M., & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2008). Individual and societal effects of mental disorders on earnings in the United States: results from the national comorbidity survey replication. American Journal of Psychiatry, 165(6), 703-711.
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This article is intended for informational purposes only, and doesn't constitute tax, accounting, or legal advice. Everyone's situation is different! For advice in light of your unique circumstances, consult a tax advisor, accountant, or lawyer.
