Think of Sesame as the Expedia of healthcare services.
In this episode, Dr. Michael Botta, co-founder, and president at Sesame, talks about this health services marketplace platform that works with thousands of clinicians across the country for a combination of in-person and telehealth care services. Sesame has the infrastructure to connect patients and clinicians with transparent, affordable pricing for prepaid rates, helping those who are concerned about regular visit costs or getting a surprise bill in the mail. Michael breaks down how Sesame works in a consumer-friendly way and with different tier services as an alternative model for patients regarding insurance companies. Not only is Sesame life-changing for patients, but also for clinicians as their business model can change for the better with the use of this platform.
Tune in to this episode to learn more about Sesame and the many offerings they have for a better healthcare experience!
FULL EPISODE
BTO_Michael Botta: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
BTO_Michael Botta: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Welcome to Bite the Orange. Through our conversations, we create a roadmap for the future of health with the most impactful leaders in the space. This is your host, Dr. Manny Fombu. Let's make the future of healthcare a reality together.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Hi, listeners! Thank you for joining us again for another episode of Bite the Orange, where we talk about innovation. And today, we have an incredible individual and a fantastic background, and it's definitely someone that belongs on the Bite the Orange, and hopefully, we'll get him to be part of the movement, and hopefully, you'll become part of the Bite the Orange movement. And so today we have Michael Botta from Sesame. So, Michael, welcome, and please tell us about yourself.
Michael Botta:
Sure, and thanks for having me, Manny. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm the co-founder and the president at Sesame, and Sesame is a health services marketplace where we work with thousands of clinicians across the country for a combination of in-person care, telehealth services, really across the full spectrum of medical care. So if you are a patient who's looking for a doctor or looking for a lab, imaging, a procedure, you name it, and you care how much your healthcare costs, I'd say we're the best place to find your care. We can connect you to an affordable clinician that can do what you need at a price you can afford. And so we think of this place as being sort of half price, but whole quality care and the marketplace structure really let us do that, so it has been a pleasure. This is very much a mission for us and it's exciting to get a chance to come on and talk a little bit more about it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And that's very interesting, Michael, you describe yourself as a marketplace. So tell me how this works. Are you, how do you differentiate from another? Are you a telemedicine company? Are you a marketplace? How do you differentiate yourself from like a Teladoc, for example?
Michael Botta:
So Sesame is very much a marketplace in that we work with thousands of independent providers across the country, and these are all physicians, mid-level clinicians, imaging centers, laboratories that are interested in growing their own businesses and they're using our infrastructure. So our marketplace platform, and whether that's to scale their in-person services, so to find patients and for patients to find them, whether it's to scale their telehealth practice, so we have a full-functioning telehealth platform. Individual patients come to Sesame and they discover and get matched with, they pay and lock in essentially discounted prepaid pricing for whatever they need, and then they can do that with a telehealth visit, do it as an in-person visit, whatever is appropriate for their need. So we do plenty of telehealth, I'd say there are many thousands of telehealth visits in a given week, in a given day on the platform that we facilitate. But we're providing the infrastructure and connecting patients with these clinicians that really want to practice care differently and want to offer affordable pricing for prepaid rates. So if you are a patient and let's say you have a high deductible health insurance plan, you may not get the best deal through your insurance if you need to see a specialist or if you need an outpatient procedure, or even if you just need a primary care and urgent care visit. For all of those things, you can find a rate on Sesame that generally is cheaper than your copay, certainly cheaper than your deductible, and gets you a great local high-quality clinician for whatever you need. If telehealth is appropriate, you can do it same day, typically do it same hour, and if in-person care is what you need, you can schedule any time within the next three days, it's open for the clinician and that fits your schedule. So we're in the business of connecting people who need affordable healthcare, and I'd say it is very much a mission for us because we help a lot of people get care that they otherwise maybe would have deferred or would have skipped because they were concerned about how much it would cost or concerned about getting a surprise bill in the mail.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That is very interesting. Is it fair to say, for example, because, I've been on a platform, actually, and I found it very convenient on how you could book sessions, I mean, you go from therapy and it's very hard these days actually, to get access to a therapist, right, especially for your health, kind of crisis, and I feel like I could book something directly, and so how do you differentiate yourself on like, ZocDoc, right? Because I could book an appointment, I mean, if I look at it, I could tell the difference, but I would like to maybe expand it a lot more, so some of our listeners can understand the value proposition and how different you are from what is currently in the market.
Michael Botta:
For sure, so when I think about ZocDoc, I think about a platform that is great at helping someone whose primary need is convenience. So I want to find the next available person in town who accepts my insurance, let's say, and I'm not necessarily that concerned about the cost. I'm not going to get any information about the cost upfront. I may not even know that they accept the specific plan of my insurer. So I want to find who's next available, let me get them scheduled, and let me get done with this. Sesame is different in that we're putting price information right upfront so you know exactly how much it's going to cost you, and in fact, you're prepaying and you're paying on the platform to lock in the most affordable rate possible. So if you're somebody who cares about value and somebody who really cares how much their healthcare costs, we're the place to go. I'd say that that's fundamentally different and that, yeah, you can use both platforms to book a visit with a doctor, but if you're on Sesame, you are guaranteed some peace of mind because you're not going to get a surprise bill, you're not going to get ripped off. You're going to get a fair, affordable price from a local medical practice.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And this is incredible because you're doing basically price transparency, which is something that, you know, look at Congress, for example, pushing the idea of price transparency in medicine. And at most hospitals and clinicians are resisting the idea of it, but you are basically making this is more consumer-friendly, right, because you're telling them exactly what that visit costs.
Michael Botta:
I think about it twofold. So price transparency itself is good, but what you need is an actual competitive, dynamic market for care. So price transparency without competition doesn't do very much, like I could post my prices and my prices are $1,000,000,000 for primary care visit, that's transparent, but it's not necessarily actionable. So I say the beauty of what we're doing is that we're actually giving you choice so you can choose between different clinicians and different pricing. And if you're a clinician on Sesame, you really get to build your own independent practice. So you can scale up, you can have independent individual fee for service visits, you can offer subscriptions powered by our platform, so you can scale your practice and you can price dynamically. So I'd say one of the things we try to do differently in building the platform was introduce some of the same kind of yield management and dynamic pricing technology that exists on the entire Internet that is sort of fundamental to e-commerce but doesn't really exist in healthcare because there hasn't been a space for it to exist. If you are taking third-party payments, if you're taking payment from your insurance company, the insurance company says you've got to charge the same price for the same service all the time, no matter if it's a time that's convenient for you, the doctor, or not. So you end up with is a world where a lot of clinicians work three or four days a week and they have a rate that makes sense because they'll be willing to do it those three or four days a week, but you've also got lots of clinicians who say, Look, I would take on some incremental patients if I was getting paid appropriately for them. So if I could use yield management pricing and dynamic pricing, get some help with that, I might have late night hours that are, for me, more than I might charge during the day, but a lot cheaper than going to an urgent care or to an emergency room. Or you might have clinicians who are saying, I want to fill up available time on my schedule, my current practice setting at a facility, I don't work Thursday mornings, but I can certainly take on some incremental video visits on Thursday morning and I can price them on Sesame and make meaningful money for them and pay down student loans or otherwise build an independent practice separate from a facility. So that's really, our value prop for a clinician is you can really build your own business on this platform. These are your patients like you're an independent doctor using the sesame infrastructure and listing on the sesame marketplace. So build that relationship, serve a patient in a way that makes sense for you, and build a business that you can be excited about and in the process save patients a lot of money compared to what they might pay as a negotiated rate through an insurer or pay as an out of pocket price.
Emmanuel Fombu:
So this is very interesting because now clinicians on the platform are basically independent contractors, right? So they're not working for Sesame, right? It's just a model, so it's, and I was curious, when I look at your platform and I go, Wow, how do you hire all these people from all across the country, it was like, incredible. So it's, basically, it's like an Upwork for doctors, right? So you're an independent freelancer, you come up and you can create your own price of what you want to.
Michael Botta:
Think of it more as like, think about Expedia. So Expedia built a dynamic platform where you could book a high-value service and often, you know, like a decently high-priced service, one that matters a lot to the customer. But Expedia, like the brilliance of it, is A, like helping all of these independent businesses establish a market clearing pricing that makes money for the businesses, helps them build their businesses grow and be profitable, and also helps patients discover them, search, filter, and find a good match. The beauty of medicine, just like the beauty of, let's say, finding a hotel, to use a relatively simplistic example, is not everybody needs the same thing. So when you're shopping for a hotel on Expedia, you, if you're a business traveler, you might want free breakfast and late check-in. If you're a family traveler, you might want a pool at the hotel and close to the museums and parks. Those are different things, and depending on what your needs are, you're going to want to search and filter differently. That's really what you can do on Sesame. So you can find the clinician whose specialization makes them the right person to treat diabetes or to treat elder care issues and geriatric medicine, or the clinician who says, I'll help you navigate a chronic care issue like managing hypertension or managing something that you've never dealt with before and are looking for a doctor to really help you get to the bottom of what ails you. That sort of search and discovery functionality that say, is, what's different about Sesame? And you combine that with yield management, with dynamic pricing, you end up with a place where clinicians can price really affordably because they're not dealing with the burden of third-party payment and the cost of submitting a claim and the costs of prior off and fighting for getting reimbursement, if something gets denied, you get paid upfront on Sesame. So you're offering competitive pricing that comes with essentially a prepaid discount and patients benefit and you can build your practice in a way that lets you practice independently. I think, Manny, over the course of the pandemic, there's a lot of clinician burnout happening in the market. A lot of folks have worked hard, long hours and settings where they haven't really felt very appreciated, they haven't gotten great raises, and man, they might be looking around and saying, you know, all my friends, my family, my spouse, their life has gotten a little better and that they have a work from home model now, they're spending more time with the kids, they're less time commuting, less time working in a setting that doesn't really appreciate them. And so increasingly, clinicians are saying, how do I get some of that candidly? How can I improve my work-life balance and my work model? And Sesame as a platform lets any licensed clinician that's appropriately licensed for the care they want to deliver do that and do that on their own and really build their own business. So that's what we're doing every day. I'd say it's very much a mission to us to help clinicians practice independently and build their own businesses and also really a mission to help patients who care how much their healthcare costs find half price, but whole quality care, and we do it every day. We love doing it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That's very interesting, and by the way, I'm going to join Sesame after this.
Michael Botta:
Come on down, we're in.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Yeah, and it's brilliant. I like that, the only is you make things convenient for, on the patient side of it, you also make things very convenient on the clinician side, and physician burnout is something that's very real. As a matter of fact, due to pandemic, we had healthcare workers, you know, stand up and, you know, try to help everyone, but what happened is they actually got pay cuts. Like, there were some, several articles about this, but the independent point of a condition to be independent and do what they want at the point of care at the time that they're more relaxed and convenient for them is something that I think benefits the market on both sides and is very unique. But I notice, if I pay out of pocket, upfront, I pay without like, without insurance, can I then submit that receipt to my insurance company as part of a deductible plan? Or we should target audience? Since I'm trying to go like we should target ...
Michael Botta:
So this is sort of the magic of health insurance that everybody's health insurance is different, right? So it depends on your benefit package. But when we think about sort of the ideal world for Sesame, if you have a high deductible plan that's sort of independent, let's say you have an ACA plan, something from the Obamacare exchanges, you can use an HSA or an FSA or a health savings account or a flex spending account to pay for visits on Sesame. And increasingly, what we're doing is working with employers that offer a self-insured plan. So if that terminology is familiar to listeners here, I think people may know or may not know, most large employers, if you have more than 200 employees, you don't necessarily buy insurance from Cigna or Aetna, or Blue Cross. You pay those guys to administer a benefit for you. So they give your employees a card and they handle the billing in processing a payment on behalf of the business, but ultimately, the business pays the bill. They're self-insured, so they pay for the cost of their members' healthcare. So what we're doing increasingly is working with businesses and saying, look, just include Sesame as a benefit for your employees so that any money they spend on Sesame before they hit their deductible counts towards their deductible. So it's fundamentally a way for an employee to save money because they're getting better rates than the negotiated rates, they may have gotten the ... gotten via a self-insured benefit, it helps the employer because it means that this employee is less likely to trip their deductible and for all that spending account towards the employer's books. So depending on who you are and depending on how you access Sesame, if you access it as a direct-to-consumer who's coming in the front door and there's no employer relationship, you can use your HSA or your FSA, like I was saying, you can use a credit card, you can use whatever payment you want, it'll be cheaper than your co-pay if you are insured. And if you're uninsured, it's definitely cheaper, it's going to be the best deal around, we're pretty confident of that. And then if you're, this is offered to via your employer, via another channel where there's a partnership, ideally, it's going to count towards your deductible spend. And so you can save money using this platform, get your predictable care, get outpatient care through us, and then save money. And if disaster strikes, if there's a serious broken bone, a serious illness that crops up, you know, some kind of accident, then yeah, you'll have your benefits, your benefits will kick in, and things will run through your insurance. But for the vast majority of healthcare spending in America, you can get an incredibly affordable rate on Sesame and be better off for it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And I also noticed that you have a pretty smart engine. So while I'm talking to you right now, I pull up on the Sesame website, I'm in New York, and literally, it's telling me how many dermatologists are right next to where I am, right? So I didn't have to put anything, so you must have some very smart cookies in the back end of your engine. So it's pretty smart, but yeah, tell me more about it. It is very personalized.
Michael Botta:
I think I mentioned, like when we thought about building Sesame, we were trying to be inspired not necessarily by the way things have always been done in healthcare because a lot of healthcare tech is pretty old school. I think, you know, there aren't that many models that people have put into effect in digital health, especially direct-to-consumer health. A lot of people monetize prescription drugs. So they've got a model where they say, like we basically give away the clinical services or we've deconstructed a clinical service down to like basically survey-based medicine like we do an asynchronous visit, a doctor reviews it in their free time, and where we make money is by selling you a prescription drug, we do mail order and we charge a lot more for that than it would cost at a local pharmacy. That was not the model we wanted to put into place for Sesame. We wanted to do something fundamentally different, which was we want clinicians to make money offering great care. So we went to, like I was saying before, sort of some example industries and hired folks that were passionate about healthcare and shared the mission, but didn't necessarily share the bad habits of sort of legacy digital health, legacy healthcare. So we're bringing in technological ideas from travel marketplaces, from other e-commerce platforms, from, like Airbnb, let's say, to say, how do we make this a pleasant experience for the seller and the buyer, so for the doctor and for the patient? And what are the things that exist from outside the world of healthcare that we should bring into this space to make it a better process and a better experience? So that's really what our team is doing. It's a lot of folks who have great experience from outside of the world of healthcare, paired up with people who have real healthcare expertise to build a product that is new and fundamentally different.
Emmanuel Fombu:
This is truly incredible. And I'll tell you that I checked out your website two weeks ago and last week and even today. Talking to you right now, I have a completely different vision of view of what Sesame is or Sesame does, which is the point of such conversations, right? And that's why I think the audience will actually listen to this and get a better understanding of it. But I'm very interested to explain some of the products that you offer because I know you have, you could be a one-time visit piece and you have a Sesame Plus program, right? Could you just talk to us about those two different pieces, the membership kind of pieces, and you get a discount on visits? How does that work?
Michael Botta:
Exactly, so I think about, let's say a patient is using Sesame for the first time. We don't expect that you trust us. What we recognize healthcare, like anything, we need to build trust with you. So if you want to come in and do a transactional visit, so at one time, basically fee for service visit, you can do that. Pick your clinician from a list of several thousand people who are available in your market and have a visit with that clinician, whether on the telehealth platform or in office, and we're confident you're going have a great experience. You're going to do that, and we expect you're going to want to come back and say, Hey, I'd like to run more of my care through the Sesame Platform. And when that happens, we've got different membership options for you. So Sesame Plus gives you essentially the best possible pricing on any service on Sesame. So even deeper discounts than where things are available right now. And increasingly what we're doing and we'll have announcements to this effect coming up pretty soon here, is giving you a way to have a membership that is more oriented towards chronic care management, even perhaps with the same clinician. So pick a clinician you like and really subscribe to that individual clinician to their practice, which is a great way for that clinician to establish continuity of care, for a patient, to get a great experience that not only deals with an urgent care or a sick care visit, but really helps that patient stay healthy for the long term and establishes that recurring relationship with the Sesame platform itself. So we've got a few different models here. You can do a transactional visit, you can come in and do a one-time use for what you need. I can give you a couple of examples. So as you know, think about the old hair club for men, as I'm not just the president, I'm also a client, that's true for me too. I've used Sesame for transactional visits. I remember right after we had our first child finding a lactation consultant on a Saturday evening, or my wife was having some trouble with breastfeeding, we wanted to talk to somebody about it. Found a great person to speak with that night who was able to help us and guide us in the right direction. I also use Sesame to pay for memberships for both of my elderly grandparents for geriatric care with a great physician who has been incredibly helpful, really almost a part of our family as we sort of navigate the challenges of aging for people I care very much about, and that's a subscription to that clinician's practice. So you can do it all, and I think you can find a great clinician who fits your needs. It's not one size fits all. And we also don't expect that if you come to Sesame, it doesn't necessarily make sense for you to go into the queue and just get the next physician up or the next clinician who's available because that might not be the right person for your specific needs. So the ability to pick who you're going to see and establish a relationship with that clinician, that's what we're doing here.
Emmanuel Fombu:
That is incredible. So if I'm in New York, can I see a clinician in California? Arkansas? Localize. Oh, gotcha. So that's the state that I'm in.
Michael Botta:
Depends on the state that you're in. You've got to see somebody who's licensed in your state. But let's say there's a doctor who's sitting in beautiful San Diego, but they hold a New York State license, you can definitely see that clinician for a telehealth visit.
Emmanuel Fombu:
It's based on, what is it based on? On my physical location at the time? I mean, it's based on my physical location.
Michael Botta:
Physical location at the time. So if you were to fly to San Diego, you would see a different set of clinicians to see, and it'd be people who are licensed to see patients in the state of California.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Got you. Same individual, different geography, different rules apply. Makes a lot of sense.
Michael Botta:
That's right. That's right. That's sort of the way our old school system works in America. No, no one says American healthcare makes a ton of sense, but we've got what we've got.
Emmanuel Fombu:
So on that note, so what if, international perspective, right? So let's say I was in Germany, or I'm actually going to Germany next week so, let's say, so I'm out of the country and I want to talk to a clinician. Is it possible for me to then connect? Or is it different? Can I use this out of the country?
Michael Botta:
You can't, no, and another American healthcare issue. So we can serve folks who are in the United States in any of the US, 50 states and territories, but you've got to see somebody who is licensed in the particular place where you are at that time.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Got you, so, I mean, from a business perspective, from Sesame, are there plans to expand internationally? I mean, I know the US market is big enough for you, I'm not saying you have to. I'm just curious from that perspective.
Michael Botta:
Wait and see. I think like I was saying, many this is very much a mission-oriented business. There are a lot of people who think the way that healthcare works does not work that well for them. So whatever expansion we can do that helps serve the mission more broadly, we'd be very eager to do it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Perfect, before we run up, I have another question for you regarding, I noticed you also have a prescription refill kind of service kind of piece, so is that something that you mail out the prescriptions yourself, or how does that work? Because you could do ... if they could get prescriptions.
Michael Botta:
We don't tell you what to do on that front. You can choose the pharmacy that is right for you. We'll give you a prescription discount card, you can go to a local pharmacy and pick up same day at any local pharmacy near you. If you want mail order, we can also help you with mail order. So it's really up to the patient, we're not going to force you into one bucket or the other. Like I said, we're not a place that's looking to monetize pharmacy as our primary channel for doing business. So do what's right for you. If it's an urgent care need, if need to pick something up today, and any clinician on Saturday will send it to your preferred pharmacy anytime.
Emmanuel Fombu:
And last question. Do you have an EHR system on your own? Is that like a Sesame platform where clinicians?
Michael Botta:
Yeah.
Michael Botta:
Oh, my friend, that's brilliant. So that's actually wow.
Michael Botta:
It's a, you know, a lot of work has gone into making this place the way it does. And most EHRs are really built around billing, right? So your EHR is really your tool to bill insurers, bill third-party payment, we don't do that at Sesame. So we've got a little bit of a different infrastructure under the hood that includes your clinical notes, your e-prescribing, your lab orders, your holistic view of the patient, longitudinal for the times you've seen them, and the data you have about them. But it's oriented towards care, it's not necessarily oriented towards sending a bill and getting a prior authorization managed. So it's a different experience.
Emmanuel Fombu:
This is quite incredible, and I notice, for Sesame Plus, you could do your own blood tests. I mean, you could do, like, free blood tests, it comes to free lab or blood tests per year, right? So you could get independent labs, do the test and you could submit it into your platform. You collect data sets on that.
Michael Botta:
That's right, we work with all the labs you've heard of. So you can place an order, go to a local draw facility and, say it's Quest, let's say it's LabCorp, what have you, have that work done and have it show up on the infrastructure so that your clinician can see that result and help you navigate your care. Because like I was saying, we're trying to build this place not just to serve next patient up for urgent care, but to really manage your health proactively. So you can see a clinician long term, have that clinician know who you are, and care for you in a way that keeps you healthy, keeps you from having a really expensive bill down the line because you didn't get to manage your health. So that's what we're doing.
Emmanuel Fombu:
This is truly incredible. It's been an honor speaking with you, Michael, and I would love to be in touch. And what I'm doing is I'm going to sign myself up, and my mother. My mom was actually visiting me right now. I'm going to say both of us up because she does, she does a regular CBC. She's retired now, and just like tracking this exercise and do that. But I, I see a lot of value in this, is like that convenience of things and you know, just monitor myself and just do a lab test kind of piece, to be able to see a clinician when I want, it's very convenient. And so I am, be a fan, and I would love to have you back, definitely, you know, to share my experience by using this, right?
Michael Botta:
That sounds great. I think we have a rule eye on our customer service team, which is, if it's not good enough for our own family, then we don't want to put our patients in front of it. And we live it because like literally both of my grandparents have memberships to Sesame and use it for care to help them stay healthy and stay alive. I've used it a bunch. It's, we're proud of this place. We're doing this to get people the care that they need. Look, it's also a venture-backed business, we're using it and building this platform to build a durable enterprise. But we're thinking about it because our hearts are in the right places. We want to build something that makes clinical practice better for the clinicians, that gives patients a real relationship with a doctor that they choose, and that helps people save money on great care.
Emmanuel Fombu:
It's quite incredible. I mean, and I mean, you're not paying me to say this, I'm saying, but personally, just like I've been on your website for hours, like, you're like, navigating it, and at first, I thought it was more of a model, like a Teladoc model where you have clinicians working for you, and then you go out, and this is completely different. This is more my style. I'm all like open, free-spirit kind of guy, right? So this works perfectly. It works perfectly for me. I want to make a convenience, book my appointment. The price is very clear. I know exactly what MRI costs me. I know exactly, and I could pay this upfront and I could submit the bill to my insurance company to get right for the deductible piece if I want to, based on my terms for what I want to do.
Michael Botta:
You got it, for your HSA, for FSA, or if your employer has to deal with this right towards your deductible, you got it.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Correct, and so thanks a lot, Michael, it was great having you, and I would love for us to continue this conversation again. Once again, I think what you're doing at Sesame is exactly the kind of innovation that fits the way, it transforms healthcare, and you are a great example of, to Bite the Orange kind of piece, right? You saw a problem in the field, you challenged it and you solve it in a very effective way that fits perfectly within the user's workflow, right, and it is perfectly done. And so if you support us and you believe in the mission, Michael, and I challenge you to this, feel free to Bite the Orange. I'd love to see a picture of you biting the orange with the skin on, right, take a bite, and I challenge your audience. Anyone listening, if you believe Michael's vision, please sign up to Sesame, and we have information about how to find Sesame, and I would definitely include Sesame as well under ... Health Marketplace, which is sponsor of this particular podcast, to make sure that more people are aware of this. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience Michael?
Michael Botta:
Manny, it was a pleasure. Thank you very much for having me.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Same here, it's an honor. Thank you very much. And please feel free,make sure you reach out to Michael and if you have any questions, please join Sesame and share your experiences with us. So thank you and thanks for listening to another episode of Bite The Orange.
Emmanuel Fombu:
Thank you for listening to Bite the Orange. If you want to change healthcare with us, please contact us at info@emmanuelfombu.com, or you can visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com or BiteTheOrange.com. If you like this episode and want more information about us, you can also visit us at EmmanuelFombu.com.
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About Michael Botta:
Dr. Michael Botta is a health policy expert, author, and businessman. Michael holds a Ph.D. in Health Policy from Harvard University and is a regular guest lecturer at Harvard Medical School and the Kennedy School of Government.
Prior to co-founding Sesame, Michael spent 5 years at McKinsey & Co. working closely with healthcare industry clients, designing new value-based care models, building integrated health systems, and launching new health financing programs in the US and abroad. Michael is an author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and has served as a reviewer for various publications, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Journal of Health Economics, the British Medical Journal, and others.
Earlier in his career, he served in the Obama Administration’s White House Office of Management and Budget during the drafting of the Affordable Care Act, and was an advisor to the State of Massachusetts during the creation of their health policy commission.
Things You’ll Learn:
Sesame is a platform that works with thousands of independent providers across the country who want to grow their businesses, allowing them to find patients and vice versa.
Individual patients can go to Sesame, discover and match with a service that they can pay and lock with discounted prepaid pricing, via telehealth, in-person visit, or whatever is appropriate for their needs.
Price transparency needs an actual dynamic and competitive market in order to be effective and useful.
On Sesame, clinicians can build their independent practice and set their own prices for their different services and offerings.
Users that access Sesame via their employer will have what they spend through the platform count towards their deductible spending.