Aware Health - 3x3x3 Challenge With Jamie Kirmess
Aware Health is a virtual MSK clinic with same-day access, high-touch care, and a 95% surgery avoidance rate. It helps self-funded employers cut MSK spend by 30% compared to trend.
Transcript:
what is Aware Health?
Aware Health is a virtual or hybrid orthopedic and lifestyle medicine practice. We triage, diagnose and treat MSK issues and the root causes behind them. We offer the fastest access to care with same or next day appointments and an emergency line available nights and weekends to help patients avoid unnecessary ER visits. Think of us more like a DPC model for orthopedics than a virtual PT app. Patients see the same provider each time, building real relationships that drive better outcomes. We were founded by Dr. Heidi Ojha, who launched the first research lab in the US dedicated to direct access physical therapy. She spent her entire career validating what works, and now she's built a company around it. We're so confident in our results that we offer a performance guarantee. If we don't at least avoid the cost of our program, we'll refund the difference.
How is Aware Health different?
For years, traditional physical therapy fell short. Patients had to take time off work, pay out of pocket and often receive care in group settings with little privacy or consistency. Then companies like Hinge Health and SWORD revolutionized access by delivering PT through digital platforms, but in prioritizing scale, they built tech forward models that emphasize exercise therapy for the masses, often at the expense of an accurate diagnosis and truly personalized care. We were built to be the sweet spot between traditional PT and virtual PT. We combine the convenience of digital access with a diagnostic rigor and one-to-one treatment of a high performing clinic. We use tech too, but more in a backend, clinical way. Our algorithms support our providers in making accurate diagnosis without relying on imaging, helping patients get the right treatment faster, and because members build an ongoing relationship with their provider, they're less likely to enter a system that defaults to imaging, injections, or surgery unless it's truly necessary. This model works, we've achieved a 95% surgery avoidance rate, and we've helped our customers reduce MSK spend by 30% compared to trend.
Who is a good fit for Aware Health?
Self-funded employers with 500 more belly buttons on the plan, and while we operate like a boutique practice, we're able to support large customers too, our largest is about 25,000 lives today. We work best with innovative benefit consultants who want more than a checkbox solution, they actually want to solve the problem. Roughly 50% of a population will experience an MSK condition and 35% will show up in claims. You really need a partner whose model can reach those members without driving costs up for each engagement. We also work with forward-thinking TPAs that want to offer something different and doesn't feel like another commodity benefit.
Transcript:
what is Aware Health?
Aware Health is a virtual or hybrid orthopedic and lifestyle medicine practice. We triage, diagnose and treat MSK issues and the root causes behind them. We offer the fastest access to care with same or next day appointments and an emergency line available nights and weekends to help patients avoid unnecessary ER visits. Think of us more like a DPC model for orthopedics than a virtual PT app. Patients see the same provider each time, building real relationships that drive better outcomes. We were founded by Dr. Heidi Ojha, who launched the first research lab in the US dedicated to direct access physical therapy. She spent her entire career validating what works, and now she's built a company around it. We're so confident in our results that we offer a performance guarantee. If we don't at least avoid the cost of our program, we'll refund the difference.
How is Aware Health different?
For years, traditional physical therapy fell short. Patients had to take time off work, pay out of pocket and often receive care in group settings with little privacy or consistency. Then companies like Hinge Health and SWORD revolutionized access by delivering PT through digital platforms, but in prioritizing scale, they built tech forward models that emphasize exercise therapy for the masses, often at the expense of an accurate diagnosis and truly personalized care. We were built to be the sweet spot between traditional PT and virtual PT. We combine the convenience of digital access with a diagnostic rigor and one-to-one treatment of a high performing clinic. We use tech too, but more in a backend, clinical way. Our algorithms support our providers in making accurate diagnosis without relying on imaging, helping patients get the right treatment faster, and because members build an ongoing relationship with their provider, they're less likely to enter a system that defaults to imaging, injections, or surgery unless it's truly necessary. This model works, we've achieved a 95% surgery avoidance rate, and we've helped our customers reduce MSK spend by 30% compared to trend.
Who is a good fit for Aware Health?
Self-funded employers with 500 more belly buttons on the plan, and while we operate like a boutique practice, we're able to support large customers too, our largest is about 25,000 lives today. We work best with innovative benefit consultants who want more than a checkbox solution, they actually want to solve the problem. Roughly 50% of a population will experience an MSK condition and 35% will show up in claims. You really need a partner whose model can reach those members without driving costs up for each engagement. We also work with forward-thinking TPAs that want to offer something different and doesn't feel like another commodity benefit.