Can you share an explanation of the Lanby?

The Lanby is a wellness-forward, hospitality-led primary care membership for patients who simply want more. We take an expansive approach to primary care – one that’s integrative, customized, and above all, patient-centric. Members are assigned a dedicated care team involving a Lead Physician (MD), Wellness Advisor (RD), and Concierge Manager, who work together to cover the three pillars of the patient journey: medicine, wellness, and coordination. The monthly membership includes visits & chat, a personalized care plan, expedited access to trusted referrals, on site lab work, programming, and more.

What inspired you to start The Lanby? How did your career get here?

I have always been passionate about medicine. I studied bioengineering in undergrad at UPenn and went on to pursue a career in healthcare strategy & tech consulting. I worked closely with providers on improving their workflows to increase efficiencies and improve care delivery. I was enamored by the world of healthcare and wanted to understand every aspect of it. But it wasn’t until I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 23 that I realized just how broken our healthcare system is. Beyond the shock of the diagnosis itself, what I struggled with most was the coordination of care needed to keep all of my doctors in the loop. I had a specialist for every step of my treatment, but no one was quarterbacking the process from start to finish. I had to be that liaison, which only added to my stress and fear.

Post treatment, I pivoted my focus towards prevention. I was 24 at that point and naturally wanted to do everything in my power to avoid a cancer recurrence. I asked every single one of my doctors for guidance, but my determination fell on deaf ears. These doctors were trained to treat the problem, not prevent it from ever happening to begin with. I turned to primary care, the supposed first line of defense in healthcare. It takes on average 29 days to get an appt with a PCP and an additional 30 min in the waiting room. After all of that waiting, you can imagine my disappointment when the feedback was the same – My labs were normal and my cancer was gone. There was nothing more to do.

Once again, I came to terms with the idea that the field of medicine as it stood was not going to help me manage my health. It ultimately was on me to be my own advocate, do the research and devise a plan to optimize my diet and lifestyle to get the best outcome.

I also quickly realized that I wasn’t the only one to have arrived at the same conclusion. None of my peers had a primary care doctor. They also didn’t think they were missing out.

This perspective is a huge issue for our broader healthcare system and why our system has become so devastatingly bad – primary care was designed to be a point of triage within healthcare. To minimize risk of disease thereby lightening the load on downstream healthcare (i.e. emergency room and specialists). In fact, 80% of health issues can be addressed by a primary care doctor alone. If you cut that person out of your life, small problems become big problems, expensive problems.

So the question I asked myself is how did the experience get this bad and useless that we’re all willing to take the risk of not going at all?

Problem #1: misaligned incentives – because of the insurance, fee for service model, doctors are incentivized by volume over quality. How can we expect them to really be there for us, when that involves taking time away from seeing other patients thereby more insurance dollars.
Problem #2: Medicine is by nature reactionary. Our doctors are not trained to focus on prevention and certainly don’t have the extra time to learn about wellness in their already busy schedules.

So instead, patients have reset their expectations. They’ve taken wellness into their own hands and turn to urgent care for the acute problems that come up along the way. And so the bad cycle continues – we’re spending more time and money on wellness services that are fad-based and potentially not effective, and a lot more money on downstream health issues. Our care is siloed across so many players and we as consumers have no one to turn to for guidance.

The Lanby’s mission is to redefine the scope of primary care to satisfy what patients really want. If we can align ourselves with their needs, we can engage patients earlier on, where it matters most. And if we do this really well, we can not only get them engaged, we can keep them motivated to take their health to the next level.

What challenges have you faced while starting The Lanby?

The biggest challenge is conveying everything we cover, and being transparent with what we don’t cover. Healthcare is confusing enough as it is and we’re trying to make it as simple and easy as possible. The services we offer are unique and all-inclusive. While the membership fee itself is not covered by insurance, we do our best to support our members in navigating insurance to maximize the impact of their healthcare spend.

How do you feel the health/health technology industry has changed in the past few years? ?

Over the last ten years, the wellness industry has boomed as a result of increased demand for self-care and prevention. For consumers, it felt less daunting and scary to put their money into attractive wellness services than into medicine. But as the industry has grown, it too has become increasingly complex to navigate. Consumers are left not knowing who to trust or where to focus their time and money.

Advances in healthcare technology on the other hand have made it increasingly possible for patients to access healthcare on demand. The problem we are now facing is that patients crave continuity. They don’t just want to talk to any doctor, they want to build a long-term relationship.

What future changes in the health technology world would you like to see??

More automation to support asynchronous engagement, without compromising personalization and continuity of care.

What’s your vision for how The Lanby will use technology and the member app?

Our goal is to leverage technology to empower our care teams to be more efficient with their time while increasing proactive outreach and follow through. For us that means more ongoing asynchronous engagement with members, personalized reminders to increase accountability, and better tracking tools to manage tasks and minimize open care loops.

What has been the most positive/enjoyable part about starting The Lanby?

Seeing how grateful our members are for our commitment to fixing this very serious, difficult problem.

What motivates you to be a pioneer in this industry?

Having been in the patient’s seat, I know what it feels to be powerless, to feel like not only do you have to get healthy, you also have to fight the system to get there. My goal is to support patients where they need it most and cut through the noise. My vision is to create the first doctor’s office designed through the lens of the patient.

What is the best career advice you’ve received?

Be receptive and open-minded to change. Your original vision/hypothesis will likely not be the final product. Stay close to your customer to ensure maximum alignment and be ready to pivot along the way.

What has been the biggest milestone/proudest moment for The Lanby?

Welcoming our first patient in and hearing after their visit that it was nothing like any doctor’s visit they’ve ever had.

What advice would you give someone wanting to start their own company?

Find yourself a co-founder who is as passionate about solving this problem as you are.

Tell us more about the future of The Lanby and what exciting things are coming up.

We’ll be piloting our new members’ app this summer. We also just launched corporate packages and will be launching a new membership tier in the fall.

What are your go-to items you have on your desk at all times?

• 32 oz Simple Modern water bottle
• Heated blanket
• Yogi Mango ginger tea bags
• Stojo tupperware
• 5000 IU Vitamin D supplement

What are your favorite apps you use both personally and professionally?

• Obe fitness
• Nanit
• Slack