Startups are disrupting a ‘dehumanizing’ experience for women

The health system failed Tia co-founder and CEO Carolyn Witte when she needed it the most.

“I went through a three-year-long diagnosis process for something called polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is actually one of the leading causes of infertility,” Witte said. “After three years of fighting the system for this diagnosis, I found myself at a fancy fertility specialist in the Upper West Side of New York and got this diagnosis. I got very little information about what it was and if I could do anything about it.” 

Witte said she came away with a belief that the healthcare system was not designed for women at all. In 2017, she co-founded Tia, a women’s health-focused concierge company that uses a combination of in-person and virtual care. The New York-based company received $100 million in Series B funding in September 2021, led by Lone Pine Capital.  

One of the biggest challenges with the traditional health system is that clinicians tend to treat health issues reactively rather proactively, Witte said. As an example, when Witte was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome, she was only 25 and unsure if she wanted to have kids. One of the doctors she saw told her to come back to a doctor if she tried and failed to couldn’t get pregnant. 

According to a survey from Kaiser Family Foundation, women are more likely than men to have their concerns dismissed by a provider. The survey found it was especially the case for women of color, younger women, those covered by Medicaid and those in poorer health.

“The experience is too transactional and it’s dehumanizing for women,” Witte said. “Getting care can be a traumatizing journey.” 

Also, there is a lack of care coordination in women’s health, experts say. Kimon Angelides, CEO of FemTec Health, a women’s health platform company, said the healthcare system isn’t built for women trying to navigate from point A to point B.

“There’s a lot of wandering in the system. A lot of self searching,” Angelides said. “With many conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia or even the natural progress of menopause, there aren’t many places in the system for them to understand what they’re going through. So they wander through the system looking for someone to put it into context.”  

Aneesh Chopra, the president of health analytics company CareJourney and first-ever U.S. chief technology officer, said digital health services are filling out a more comprehensive picture of women’s health, particularly in maternal care. He said maternity bundles create a single, comprehensive payment for an episode of care, encouraging better coordination through prenatal, labor and delivery and postpartum.

“I am keeping my eyes open on maternity bundles that will create financial incentives to promote active engagement,” Chopra said. “I don’t know when we’ll see that at scale but I’m pretty bullish over the next 12-24 months there will be more maternity bundle deployments, which will create the fuel for women’s health companies to create a more integrated service.” 
 

Partnerships
Maternity care bundles have popped up in state Medicaid programs, but an analysis from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission found limited impact. In the commercial world, these bundles haven’t taken off in the same way as those for orthopedic or cardiac procedures.  

But that hasn’t stopped a wave of disruptors emerging in women’s health. Alongside Tia and FemTec Health, the field includes Maven Clinic, Kindbody, Wildflower Health, Allara Health, Oula, Eucalyptus, Diana Health, Health In Her HUE, Progyny and the recently funded Cayaba Care, among others.  

Seae Ventures was the lead investor in Cayaba’s most recent round, and it has also invested in Tia and Health In Her HUE. Arianne Kidder, principal at Seae Ventures, said one of the company’s core theses is that women’s health is severely underfunded and there’s a lot of opportunity. To put its money where its mouth is, Seae Ventures launched a $107 million fund in May that will invest in digital health companies led by women, Black, and Indigenous People of Color entrepreneurs. 

“This is a field that’s yet to be heavily invested in,” Kidder said. “We’ve got a long way to go.” 

One of the ways women’s health startups are making inroads is by teaming up with health systems. Tia has partnered with UCSF Health and CommonSpirit Health to provide women’s health services. In the case of CommonSpirit, the health system has launched Tia-branded women's health clinics across its  Arizona market. 

“When I started the company, health systems were like ‘yes women trust us,’ and now I think the world has woken up to the fact that this is not true,” she said. “When I talk to CFOs of hospital systems these days, there's a universal recognition that women are not being served well by the healthcare system.”

Other recent digital health-health system partnerships on women’s health have included Diana Health and HCA Healthcare; Maven Clinic and Cleveland Clinic; and Oula and Mount Sinai in New York. Community Health Systems, the Franklin, Tennessee-based acute-care hospital operator, has partnered with and invested in PeriGen, a company that uses AI to detect potential early warning signs in maternal health. 

More to come
Despite the recent surge of interest in this area, experts say investments into women’s health have a long way to go. In an analysis of women’s health technology, McKinsey found only 1% healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond oncology. Only 3% of funding of digital health funding goes to technology related to women’s health.  

“It’s a misnomer to suggest that women’s health is niche,” Witte said. “In early days of fundraising, investors would say, ‘Why are you building health care companies just for women? You’re reducing your total addressable market by 50%. Do women need their own HealthCare model?’ There’s been a shift in the last five years among investors and buyers that women’s health is not niche.”

Additional links: 
Survey from Kaiser Family Foundation
Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission analysis