It could be three hours drive even for a good experience, so being able to virtualize the entire experience we thought would be best. And the idea was, how do we package something up that gives folks access to clinical services, to clinicians anytime and anywhere, to at-home medication delivery, and to at-home lab delivery? We’re really trying to move the entire experience out of offices and doctors’ offices and labs and pharmacies for a whole variety of reasons, not the least of which is that depending on where you live in the country, that could be a horrible experience. So we knew we wanted to do something that was affordable for folks. Better than half of folks have a deductible in the $2,400 to $3,200 range per year. We did a lot of research on this, because I think cost is such a big issue and so much of the industry is moving towards high-deductible healthcare. How do you imagine the cost structure? I know with Plume, it's more expensive than many insurance plans, but less expensive than out of pocket. So a broader spectrum of services relative to where Plume is focused, I think. So we think about health in three core dimensions: supporting people's choices about their bodies and their identity, their sex life, and then family creation. The second differential is that we're spanning the entirety of the LGBTQIA spectrum. I would say that's the first differential. We really focused on blending the best of consumer health - like selecting your own medications, doing research to understand what your goals are, and really putting that to the fore - and then enlisting the clinicians in service of those choices. And we really want to think about how we could put more transparency and accessibility front-facing to the members. I think when we conceived our platform, we really wanted to break the traditional medical model. I learned how to build companies, I learned how to do VC, and then I left all of that a couple of years ago and really just took a step back and said, “How would we completely rebuild the experience for our community that takes advantage of what we can do now with virtual health and make something that's universally accessible, but more importantly puts members - we call them members - in control of their health?” How would you say that Folx differs from what other queer-affiming telehealth providers like Plume offer? I have a lot of admiration for what have been doing, because they've been doing it for a while. And then I got this weird naïve idea that if we had data and we could understand better, we could do better. I was inspired to go off and do a degree in public health. But bypassing the insurance system - including Medicare and Medicaid - means there will be a financial barrier to entry that could put the service out of reach of some who can’t afford a subscription, as Breitenstein acknowledges. That could offer LGBTQ+ people an unprecedented amount of freedom over how and where to access their care. Key to the company’s vision is making as many of its services virtual as possible, eliminating the need for in-person visits by handling labs and prescriptions through the mail and using a network of queer-friendly physicians. The platform, launching December 3, joins the ranks of other recently-started telehealth companies like Plume and QueerDoc, both queer-affirming platforms aimed at reducing LGBTQ+ health disparities by providing services like hormone therapy and lab testingįolx is hoping to offer an expansive array of care to patients, including hormones, erectile dysfunction treatment, PrEP, STI testing, and more, via monthly plans that the company says will start at $59 and scaling up to around $200, depending on which offerings members want to access. “Trans” is often considered more inclusive than transgender because it includes transgender, transsexual, transmasc, transfem, and those who simply use the word trans.After working in health care for over 30 years, Breitenstein decided one way to circumvent this problem would be to create a new way for the LGBTQ+ community - which already faces stark health disparities - to access care directly through the internet. See above for common acronyms and terms including female to male (or FTM), male to female (or MTF), assigned male at birth (or AMAB), assigned female at birth (or AFAB), nonbinary, and gender-expansive. This word is also used as an umbrella term to describe groups of people who transcend conventional expectations of gender identity or expression-such groups include, but are not limited to, people who identify as transsexual, genderqueer, gender variant, gender diverse, and androgynous. Transgender people may or may not decide to alter their bodies hormonally and/or surgically to match their gender identity. Often shortened to trans, from the Latin prefix for “on a different side as.” A term describing a person’s gender identity that does not necessarily match their assigned sex at birth.
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