Founding A Healthcare Startup (with Russell Pekala)

 "I think the more questions the employer asks, and just the deeper that they're willing to think about this and have already thought about it, the more they're able to buy into this mission." - Russell Pekala

Russell Pekala, co-founder of Yuzu Health, joined me in studio for this week’s episode focused on controlling pharmacy costs and emergency claims. 

Yuzu Health is a startup in the TPA space aiming to change how the claims process work. Rather than having the member get care and then deal with lowering costs after the fact, Yuzu pre-adjucates claims when possible, issuing a credit card to members to pay for care and avoiding huge bills on the backend. 

In addition to the claims talk, Russell and I chatted about his Harvard days, what founding a dating app was like, and the ramen-related health accident that pushed Russell into the healthcare startup space. 

Chapters:

0:00 - Meet Russell Pekala

5:53 - Working On A Dating App At Harvard
08:26 - The Art and Science of Stop Loss Insurance
18:47 - Yuzu's Innovative Startup Health Insurance Solution
20:44 - How Did Yuzu Get Started?
21:45 - Improving Healthcare Transparency and Accessibility with Yuzu
28:48 - Navigating Pharmacy Costs with SmithRX
32:51 - Revolutionizing Emergency Claims in Healthcare
39:26 - Employers Seeking Alternative Healthcare Approaches
54:26 - Revolutionizing healthcare through predictive wearables

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Key Words: 

#healthcare #healthinsurance #startups #technology #costcontrol #pharmacy #employers #predictivedata #wearables #futureofinsurance #selffunded #podcast

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