Thread Health

The lack of targeted teen health is one of the largest problems in healthcare that is hiding in plain sight. There is a ton of development elsewhere in health subspecialties, but teen health is lumped in with pediatric care. This lack of support sets young people up to be ill-equipped to manage their own health and healthcare as adults. This is so much so that health is one of the lowest areas of satisfaction of education for parents and only 50% of 20 year olds have a primary care physician. Teen health and the formative years of healthcare affect everyone and at any one time adolescents makes up 20% of the total population.

Virtual primary care, urgent care, and health education for teens and their parents, primarily through SMS and In-App Text. Teens spend eight hours a day on their phones, texts have a 98 percent open rate, 95% of teens have a smart phone regardless of background and parents need a better / accessible solution to health care as they prep their kids for adulthood.

Thread lowers communication barriers through text that prevent common conditions from being solved quickly (ex. cold, acne), health risks from being addressed (ex. nutrition, family history), and health education of patients / parents. Text is significantly cheaper and more convenient than video visits / in-person visits, and is also searchable, reference-able, and secure. Our product can significantly reduce costs for insurers and employers in spend categories like ED visits, Teen Mental Health, Asthma, Diabetes, and Obesity. Thread's clinical team specialize in adolescents, understanding the soft skills needed for developmentally appropriate care.

Onboarding: Signing up for Thread is simple. Teens or parents purchase through the shopping cart (app.threadhealth.com/special-offer) with parental consent, and have immediate access to message doctors / health professionals individually (teen & doctor) or in a group (teen, parent & doctor).

Messaging: The lovable product is a messaging platform between teen health experts and their patients. It creates a space where teens feel safe to be fully transparent about their health concerns with providers who know how to navigate and treat the full range of top 10 teen issues (Colds, Acne, Weight, Acute Mental Health, and Sexual Health), and more. A real patient conversation is linked above!

Video Visits / Referrals: If a video visit is needed, it is linked in the text chat. Referrals are also sent via text, and saved for reference at any time in the Thread record within the patient's portal.

Health Education Material: The doctor is able to link relevant short form videos / one-pagers to parents and teens about their health condition via text as they chat linking back to the website. Eventually, education material will be built into the app for more seamless reference in the patient's 'favorites' section.

Thread Health introduces a mechanism to prevent today's teens from becoming disenfranchised with the complicated US healthcare system. They will be able to access the care they need, at the time they need it, and arm themselves with skills and health knowledge to successfully bridge the gap into adulthood. Parents are thrilled and Teens learn how to navigate the healthcare system. Early interactions suggest we will prove increased engagement from Teens in their own health through text. (ex. teens lead 50% of conversation on their third exchange vs. 20% of the conversation on their first exchange)

Adolescents include 10 to 25 year olds across the population. On average, this group only sees a doctor twice a year and in many cases do not meet with their primary care provider. Meanwhile, this population, regardless of demographic or household income, are digital natives. Thread Health allows for this population and theri guardians to access a doctor within minutes, tailored to their age and with appropriate counseling and education.

Thread Health is the largest digital clinic focused on adolescents and hires adolescent medicine specialists who have dedicated their careers to supporting our target demographic. The adolescent medicine speciality is a fellowship that lasts three years, working specifically to address the health needs of teens.

Co-founders Paul Julius and Dr. Hina Talib have dedicated their careers to advancing digital care and teen health. Dr. Talib specializes in adolescent health and understands the benefits of Thread as a primary virtual point of care for a digitally native population. Paul Julius, having focused on the earliest stages of emerging digital health categories, recognizes the gap in care for teens. Through personal experience, he knows that adolescence is the formative life stage for health.

Thread Health is a virtual, data-driven, and AI supported clinic that gives adolescents the care they need and deserve. Thread's platform is supported by its expert-led team of adolescent trained physicians, health educators, and care navigators. Thread Health is available seven days a week to connect teens, parents, and doctors in real time, wherever they are.

Adolescents comprise 20% of our population and continue to be a growing area of spend for key healthcare stakeholders and is the formative age group of health. Thread's tech-based, clinically supported approach for adolescents is necessary for managing illnesses, health risks, mental health, and continuity of care for the digitally native 10-25 age group. Thread Health's asynchronous platform has proven its cost-saving model. Partners can expect 4:1 cost savings with Thread on their unaddressed adolescent population. By making digital adolescent care affordable for payors and families alike, Thread Health accelerates to Health & Health Education for Teens & Families.

Thread Health provides a comprehensive solution with medical support for a broad range of issues from common colds and acne to crucial topics such as sexual health. If your teen wakes up with a cold or has questions about acne, you or your teen can easily reach out to us via text, receiving professional healthcare advice instantly. Our services go beyond the physical, providing crucial support for mental and sexual health, enabling teens to discuss sensitive issues confidently, directly from their phones. The ability to discreetly discuss these matters with healthcare professionals can increase early detection and intervention, ultimately supporting the overall well-being of teens during the formative years of health.

Thread Health is the largest digital adolescent clinic and as a result will hold the largest proprietary dataset in the future specific to teens. Thread Health uses ai to improve customer satisfaction, by improving administrative tasks and coordination. Thread Health uses ai to reduce clinician time, meaning clinicians can use more of their time interacting with patients and guardians. Thread health will use AI in conjunction with its dataset, structured and unstructured to improve interactions with adolescents and families.

All clinical interactions are approved and reviewed by clinicians. All data is stored in a HIPAA compliant environment with encrypted data at rest and in transit. Thread Health with monitor and review conversations for bias, and clinical rigor.

Thread Health's mission and impact goal is to accelerate affordable Health & Health Education for Teens, Young Adults, and Families.

By reducing cost of care for payors, we will broaden reach of adolescent specific digital health to payors and employers.

By Targeting teens and parents of teens specifically, we will attract teens and families that would not seek care otherwise, impacting overall health of the population.

We will broaden access to care by creating a digital health solution that is affordable to medicaid, where children make up 50% of covered lives.

Full Time- 1 Paul Julius, Co-Founder and CEO
Part Time Clinical- 9 Physicians, 6 Adolescent Medicine Specialists
Part Time- Health Plan Executive, Chief Marketing Officer, Payor Specialist

2 years

Our leadership team comprises individuals from a variety of backgrounds, including different nationalities, genders, and professional experiences. 

Our DEI Goals:

1. Recruitment: We aim to continue building a diverse workforce by prioritizing inclusivity in our recruitment process. This includes reaching out to underrepresented groups and ensuring our job advertisements are accessible to a broad range of candidates.
2. Education and Awareness: We are committed to regular training sessions for our team to foster an understanding and appreciation of diversity and inclusion. This includes workshops on unconscious bias, cultural sensitivity, and inclusive communication.
3. Inclusive Policies and Practices: Developing policies that support a diverse and inclusive workplace is a priority. This includes flexible working arrangements to accommodate different needs and creating a safe space where everyone feels valued and heard.

Clinical- We have a world class clinical team trained to see teens and work with teen guardians. This broad clinical team can handle the majority of teen issues and will work to improve our clinical capabilities over time.

Operational- We are available to see patients seven days a week, with availability of our clinicans to patients during evening hours. We are looking to expand access to our product, improve the software that allows for this care to be delivered, and the supporting / patient facing app that can deliver health education as well as access to care.

Business Development- We have established our first partners and have 380 families signed up to our service. We are working on our business development pipeline that consists of partner organizations, managed medicaid, and commercial payors. We have developed business assets, an attractive savings model for partners, initial data that proves the viability of our model.

We have bootstrapped our company to date, and believe that our company can secure large contracts with payors to fund growth. We also believe our model is viable for venture funding as our addressable market, teens, has a large total addressable market and comparable teen health models in mental health have attracted venture funding. Our model is a per member per month model for medicaid, commercial insurance, and health systems. How much these partners are willing to pay are dependent on our ability to reduce costs, we believe our model will reduce costs by 10% across the population, allowing us to charge 60 to 80 per member or teen signed up to our product.

$1000 per month including operating costs and human capital. We would like to increase operating costs and spend to at least $50,000 per year.

We would be excited to receive any funding but 100k would support our initial cohort of patients and proving out our data and financial model. We will look to raise around 2 million in the next year to accelerate development.

Seed funding would help us to refine our product and clinically validate our savings model for growth.

We are looking for continued mentorship as we approach partners, refine our model for teen health, and scale our team.

Lab space would support our primarily New York based team, we need a space to host our clinicians and operating team.