SAN FRANCISCO—Virtual care company Hims & Hers is collaborating with Hartford HealthCare to connect patients in Connecticut with in-person primary and specialty care services.
It marks another way the company is integrating its spectrum of telehealth-based healthcare services across in-person and virtual care, according to executives.
The multispecialty telehealth platform connects consumers to medical care for numerous conditions related to mental health, sexual health, hair loss, weight loss, dermatology and primary care.
The company has been expanding its partnerships with health systems and brick-and-mortar primary care providers such as Carbon Health in California; Ochsner Health in Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi; Mount Sinai Health System in New York City; Privia Health in the District of Columbia, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, and Virginia and ChristianaCare across areas in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.
The addition of Hartford HealthCare brings the company’s medical system partner network to now include 14 states and Washington, D.C.
"We identify folks on our platform every day that have complex health histories or medical needs. When we do our intake form, and we do a very thorough history, we identify folks that need in-person care. We're providing access to specialty and primary care when it's needed in a brick-and-mortar setting with a trusted health system partner," Patrick Carroll, M.D., Hims & Hers' chief medical officer, said during an interview on the sidelines of the J. P. Morgan Healthcare Conference last week.
Medical providers on the Hims & Hers platform can seamlessly refer patients to Hartford HealthCare’s provider network, when necessary. This can include when Hims & Hers customers require additional in-person follow-up care or evaluations or customers who need clinical care for conditions not currently supported by the Hims & Hers platform.
"What's attractive about Hartford HealthCare is it's essentially a statewide Connecticut provider. We now have a preferred partner in the state and it enables folks in Connecticut to connect into a system that's very high quality, offers a full range of care and embraces innovation," Carroll said.
As part of the collaboration, Hartford HealthCare can leverage Hims & Hers' virtual platform as a "digital front door" as the digital health company triages "tens of thousands" of patients each day, according to Andrew Dudum, CEO and co-founder of Hims & Hers.
"The health systems are trying to optimize their brick-and-mortar locations for high-value services not just the traditional services that we might offer. We can triage patients and then identify and refer the high-acuity, higher-needs patients who are not appropriate for our platform but are very appropriate for their system. It's a mutually beneficial relationship for both," Dudum said.
Carroll added that the relationship with Hartford HealthCare "is not transactional."
"We don't guarantee a set number of referrals to them. It's really about closing the quality loop," he noted.
Hartford HealthCare is recognized for many of its specialist care services, including for treatment of cardiovascular health, diabetes and prostate care. Of note, HHC’s Heart & Vascular Institute is a national leader in cardiovascular disease care and provides personalized treatment to more patients and performs more advanced cardiac procedures than any other cardiac program in Connecticut.
“This is how we transform healthcare, making it more affordable and more accessible,” said Karen Goyette, executive vice president and chief strategy and transformation officer at HHC, in a statement. “Partnering with Hims & Hers means consumers can confidently have access to convenient and comprehensive care with both in-person and digital healthcare solutions—delivering more accessible, coordinated and personalized care to a broader population."
Hartford HealthCare's care-delivery system encompasses more than 500 locations serving 185 towns and cities, including two tertiary-level teaching hospitals, an acute-care community teaching hospital, an acute-care hospital and trauma center and three community hospitals. The system also has a behavioral health network, a multispecialty physician group, a clinical care organization, a regional home care system, an array of senior care services and a comprehensive physical therapy and rehabilitation network.
"I think most people believe that digital health and the brick-and-mortar providers are completely at odds and us succeeding was taking share from others," Dudum said. "What we found to be true is that the vast majority of patients that come to us are first-time customers getting treated for these conditions."
Just examining mental health, in the United States, over half (54%) of adults do not receive treatment for their mental illness. And a large percentage of patients who are at risk for heart attacks have not received any treatment for that condition, he noted.
Hims & Hers, which went public three years ago, saw its online subscribers jump 56% year over year to 1.4 million in the third quarter of 2023, Hims & Hers announced in its third-quarter financial results back in November.
Based on patient volume, with tens of thousands of patients triaged on its platform every day, Him & Hers is on the same scale as a large health system, Dudum noted.
"Being able to triage patients and identify high-risk patients and get them to in-person care is very valuable for us as a brand because it allows us to speak to the holistic nature of the platform," he said. "You'll see us systematically expand this network later this year as we build out our geographical footprint."
Buoyed by strong growth, Hims & Hers expects to bring in between $868 million and $873 million in 2023 revenue, representing a year-over-year increase of 65% to 66% from 2022. The company now expects to be profitable by the first half of this year.
The company has increasingly focused on offering personalized treatments to consumers by leveraging technology and data
"The focus on investing in personalized experiences and personalized medicine and the investing in the infrastructure of technology to deliver something really unique to patients has been paying off," Dudum noted.
In previous remarks, company executives have projected Hims & Hers to hit $1.2 billion in revenue by 2025.
The company expanded into cardiovascular health with its Heart Health by Hims service line and recently jumped into the weight loss market.
"A lot of that has been made possible by five to six years of investments in pharmacy capabilities and predictive technology that has enabled us to deliver a better experience for people and better outcomes at a much cheaper price," Dudum said. "Last year just allowed us to take a massive share of space. The focus for us is not being the best at everything, but being the absolute best at five or six specialty categories, sexual health, dermatology, mental health, weight care and a few others."
Hims & Hers is building out its analytics and artificial intelligence capabilities to leverage data to support precision treatments. In the fourth quarter of 2023, it launched an AI-driven service, called MedMatch, that helps providers prescribe personalized treatments.
The company also is looking to expand into new health conditions. "We continue to be excited by things like sleep, menopause and aging- and longevity-related categories such as hormones for women and men. Those are categories that we think fit really well with the model and that you'll likely see in the next year," Dudum said.