Why did you start this company?
Greg: As a resident physician, I never imagined building a startup or getting into business; however, I saw a market gap that needed to be filled. Many physicians, including myself, are looking for ways to make money outside of clinical medicine for a variety of reasons (student loan debt, new bills, declining reimbursements in clinical care, etc.) and I couldn’t find an easy solution already built. So, we built flipMD to close the gap between practicing physicians and customers that are looking for medical expertise for a variety of reasons. I’ve had ideas in the past but this time, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it and how it could change physician’s lives if we had an easy-to-use platform to find interesting project-based work outside of medicine.
Lauren: FlipMD has a huge opportunity to positively impact the medical space and medical community and it proved too difficult to shy away from the idea of taking it on full steam. The year 2020 gave the world a very new perspective about just how important all of the stakeholders are in healthcare for keeping us, the general public, safe and healthy. FlipMD has the capacity to expand not only who is involved in medical innovation and building the care paradigms, products and services of tomorrow, but also improving physician lives. Physicians are often put in a box called patient care and we believe that is all they do. With flipMD, physicians have an opportunity to expand and share their clinical knowledge by doing work in new and meaningful ways to advance the field of medicine outside the brick-and-mortar hospital.
What specific need are you seeking to address in healthcare?
Greg Hanson
Greg: Specifically, we want to be the easiest and most efficient way to source physicians to help drive innovation in the medtech space and beyond. We have spoken with a ton of different startups and biotech companies over the past several months and learned how hard it can be to source physicians to work with either due to lack of interest or time. A lot of companies jump into LinkedIn and message physicians; however, a lot of the time, they may not be available or even interested in consulting. FlipMD allows companies to post a project to a large cohort of physicians (2,000+ and growing) spread throughout every specialty and know that if they respond to the project posting, they are interested and ready to work.
What does your product do? How does it work?
Greg: FlipMD creates a centralized platform for finding physicians in every specialty. If we do not have the perfect physician for your project, I will go out and find them for you to work with. We use every job that gets posted to go out and recruit an additional 20-50 physicians that meet your specific criteria.
The client creates an account for free. Posts their specific project to our physician cohort and then wait for the flipMD physicians to apply to work with you directly. There is no subscription fees, no job posting fees, and we do not increase our physician’s rates. You pay what you see on the platform.
Lauren Hanson
Lauren: We see flipMD as connecting all of the dots. Getting those that are available, interested, and skilled from their countless hours of training and practice sitting down with companies, inventors and founders that are trying to stand up the next advancement in patient care and outcomes.
Is this your first healthcare startup? What’s your background in healthcare?
Greg: Yes, this is my first startup I’ve built. Learning more about the startup world has been eye-opening and honestly, quite fun for me. I am a current resident physician training in interventional radiology in Philadelphia after completing medical school at Dartmouth.
Lauren: Yes, also a first-time founder, and in my case not in healthcare or a physician. This experience so far has really allowed both of us to use a different part of our brains, to tackle problems with more conviction and to really showcase our abilities and skills in the rapid pace of the startup world.
What is your company’s business model?
Greg: FlipMD operates by partnering with companies interested in creating projects with physicians to help drive their company forward. Examples of the types of jobs include: startup advising, product testing/review, medical writing/content creation, market research, clinical trial consulting, competition analysis, focus groups/interviews, brand ambassador positions, due diligence, IRB/FDA consulting, etc.
Lauren: Currently we operate similarly to freelancing networks for other industries. In the future we know that there are other applications to dive into as our physician base grows and we can take on different industry needs at scale.
Do you have clinical validation for your product?
Greg: We have found that the clients that have used the platform thus far have been coming back for the remainder of their physician expertise needs. We welcome both large and small projects and try to partner with our clients to find the perfect match for their needs.
Lauren: We’ve see great traction with physician onboarding, which is a testament to how many physicians are interested in doing work outside of their clinical duties and see the value and work-life balance that flipMD offers them.
Picture: elenabs, Getty Images
