Meet Rahul Iyengar of Members Health Co

Today we’d like to introduce you to Rahul Iyengar

Hi Rahul, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I went into healthcare with the goal of helping people. During my 11 years of training, I experienced firsthand how the 4 trillion dollar U.S. healthcare system is not designed to keep people healthy. It is a flawed system that is costly, fragmented, and frustrating to navigate.

Most primary care physicians are expected to oversee a patient panel of 4,000+ patients and practice in a reactive health climate where people wait until they have symptoms to go to a doctor. This leads to short impersonal visits, a lack of availability when you need to be seen urgently, and minimal opportunities for preventive care. As a physician, I have felt forced to deliver formulaic, impersonal, and rushed care due to an overbooked schedule driven by insurance reimbursements and spend most of my time documenting the visit, calling pharmacies, or battling with insurance companies to cover the best treatments. I knew there had to be a better solution.

This is why I created Members Health Co – a membership-based primary care clinic that focuses on keeping you healthy at a fraction of the cost. The goal of my clinic is to expose the inflated costs of insurance, inaccessibility of healthcare, and offer a new option that focuses on direct physician access and advanced preventive care at a fraction of the cost.

Since opening my clinic in July, it has been incredible utilizing my training to keep people healthy instead of treat symptoms from conditions that are easily preventable. It has been eye opening how cheap most preventive care is. For example, testosterone costs $17.26, cortisol costs $6.15, and advanced cardiac biomarker testing costs $10.73. I have been doing an almost 100 biomarker panel on every patient, which would normally cost over $2,000 even with insurance because they seldom cover vitamin, hormone, or advanced biomarker testing; however, the real cost of this panel is only $200. Most of my patients have been younger and otherwise healthy – though, surprisingly, only a handful of people have had a fully normal panel.

It begs the question – why is insurance not covering more preventive care when so many people have abnormalities? And what is insurance doing for you?

Especially for younger and otherwise healthy people, health insurance does little to keep you healthy and can actually delay optimal care due to insurance hurdles. From co-pays, surprise bills, limited preventive care, limited access to care, confusing in-network versus out-of-network coverage, and delays in optimal care due to insurance hurdles, the traditional healthcare system is in actuality, “sick-care”. Yet, our options are to either pay an exorbitant amount to have insurance, or hope our employer pays for it, or forgo insurance entirely and hope we stay healthy. At Members Health Co, our goal is to establish a new standard of care that offers a personal doctor to keep you healthy for a fraction of the cost. Our membership can be bundled with a catastrophic plan for less than the cost of traditional health insurance. Ultimately, we want you to stay healthy and save money.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I have so much respect for small businesses – it is a LOT of work. It is never a smooth road, but it is all about how you handle the bumps along the way. I have absolutely loved every part of the process, and it is so freeing so have finally have full autonomy (and slightly terrifying, but mostly exciting!). After 11 years of medical training, I am so happy finally focus on preventive care and keeping people healthy beyond what health insurance covers, and at a fraction of the cost with full price transparency.

The biggest hurdles have been logistical in nature – such as, how do I send a fax? What do I do when someone sends me a fax? How do I hire an employee? It is a steep learning curve, though necessary in order to know every part of the business. There are many more challenges ahead, especially as we plan to introduce new service lines and scale up the practice, but it is all part of the journey and I am excited to be a part of it!

We’ve been impressed with Members Health Co , but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
At Members Health Co, we focus on comprehensive preventive care and keeping you healthy. We provide same-day appointments, extended visits, telemedicine, personal fitness/nutrition coaching, InBody 380 Body Composition scans, discounted preventive bloodwork, and most importantly: time. While much of healthcare is focused on developing AI technology and more efficiency, we believe in a more “old-school” approach of simply having time with our patients. If we can truly know you, be available for you, and develop a more holistic doctor-patient relationship, then we can keep you healthy and optimize your health. We limit our practice to only 300 patients per doctor so that they are available when you need them and have time to research your questions, expedite referrals, and ensure you receive the highest quality of care.

We believe in full price transparency, and all our prices and cost savings are listed on the website, www.membershealthco.com. Compared to concierge medicine, which often caters towards a more elite clientele with a higher price tag, my goal is to expose the inflated costs in all sectors of healthcare and offer reasonably priced direct-to-consumer services. For example, if a patient of mine has a sore throat they can come in the same day for a strep test which costs a few dollars and if positive, the antibiotics are a few dollars – the entire encounter is less than 15 minutes with no other copayments or fuss. Versus an urgent care visit would normally cost a few hundred dollars and take a few hours only to be seen for 5 minutes by a provider who does not know you or your health history.

Beyond accessibility and preventive bloodwork, we have a wholesale-priced pharmacy on-site for members, which is often a fraction of the cost of normal co-payments with insurance. We also look forward to some exciting growth opportunities including discounted IV hydration services that emphasize medically safe doses of IV vitamins and additives when medically necessary. We also plan to launch a discounted Botox membership with prices as low as $8 per unit for members. We are excited to partner with local sustainable farmers to offer farm-to-table grab-and-go options to make healthy food more convenient and accessible. Our goal is to become a one-stop shop for all things health with full price transparency and a focus on community. Learn more on our website (www.membershealthco.com) and follow us on Instagram @membershealthco to stay updated!

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Although my clinic was not open then, we all learned many valuable lessons from the Covid pandemic that I incorporated into my practice. The biggest risk factors for complications from Covid were uncontrolled chronic diseases including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and more. This alone demonstrated that our country lacks preventive care to get ahead of preventable chronic diseases. In practice, it is so much easier and cheaper to keep someone healthy than to try to fix the problem once it has already manifest.

The other important lesson from Covid was the importance of connectedness. Isolation and lack of community are incredibly detrimental to mental and physical health. Furthermore, the lack of connectedness between patients and doctors revealed the cracks in the healthcare system as patients experienced the stress and confusion of navigating the healthcare system by themselves.

My goal with my practice is to know my patients like friends and treat them like family – having this solid foundation allows me to truly know my patients, keep them healthy, and help through acute illnesses as if they were my own family member. Additionally, focusing on comprehensive preventive care allows me to keep my patients healthy and reduce their risk of ever developing chronic disease.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.membershealthco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/membershealthco/