Hospitals, Startups

YouTube’s rapping doctor and Zappos’s CEO bring a new model of primary care to Las Vegas

As plans began coming together for Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh’s $350 million economic revitalization project […]

As plans began coming together for Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh’s $350 million economic revitalization project in downtown Las Vegas, it was obvious that healthcare needed to be one of the pieces. The state has one of the highest uninsured populations, and the healthcare market was hit hard by the recession.

To lead the charge on revitalizing healthcare in the city, Hsieh recruited an unlikely hero: YouTube’s rapping doctor, ZDoggMD.

On the other side of the computer screen, ZDogg is Stanford-trained internal medicine physician Zubin Damania, and he’s now founder and CEO of Turntable Health, a primary care clinic opening today in Vegas.

Similar to OneMedical, it’s a membership-based, tech-savvy clinic with the goal of keeping people healthy, instead of just treating them when they’re sick. In exchange for $80 per month ($60 for kids), Turntable promises members unlimited access to primary care in the form of same-day appointments and the ability to communicate with their health team by phone, email or video chat.

The clinic is staffed by physicians, health coaches and a nurse who work together with each patient. It also offers members access to cooking, exercise and disease management classes. Because patients pay monthly, the clinic’s financial incentive is to keep people healthy and coming back, not to make referrals and order procedures, Damania explained to The Atlantic.

Day-to-day operations are being run by Iora Health, an innovative primary care company that runs a handful of other practices on the East Coast.

Turntable made the video above to announce its launch today. (Hat tip to all of the tweeps who brought this to my attention today.)

Shares0
Shares0