Lessons from an MBA: Venture Club March

We had a spotlight presenter from Expedite Healthcare named Brose McVey CEO. He is a partner in heartland strategic partners which I believe sponsored Expedite Healthcare. He went right into and addressed some gaps he saw in the Affordable Care Act. Based on his analysis, healthcare premiums will increase, in some cases, up to 100% by next year especially white collar workers. So the outcome will be that several Americans will drop group healthcare and go to the ACA exchange. Expedite healthcare plans to target these people by offering a lower cost primary health care option in the form of walk-in clinics. Expedite will be integrated to small and midsized companies’ structure. He did stress that they don’t have an option for specialist and emergency care and therefore Expedite won’t be a standalone insurance package. The advantage? With clinics nearby, patients can pop in for care and reduce wait times so that employees won’t have to take half or full days off because of physicians visits. Expedite would sell prescriptions at wholesale prices to drive down costs. He used the term Cadillac care on an affordable budget. He quoted premiums of about $60 a month.

                McVey believes Expedite would be profitable within a year and have an EBITDA of $1 million in 3 years. Their greatest competitors are similar walk in clinics and CVS minute clinic and Walgreens’ Pop in.

         Several members of my class were irked by his comments on being a former politician. Not necessarily a good idea when trying to gain the trust of your audience. Personally, I believe this market is not mature yet. It reminds me of the early dot.com era when EVERYBODY had a website, an internet business and was going to make a million dollars. There were several losers, several small and wise winners who quickly sold to a bigger player, and a few winners who actually became BILLIONAIRES. Provided they have a good management team in place, yes, I would take a gamble and invest in Expedite Healthcare in the belief that it would either become a bigger player or be acquired by a bigger player. While I still have my doubts about Expedite’s model in particular, I do believe the minute-clinic/ open clinic model will work in American super expensive healthcare system. Once they have ironed out their kinks of course.