A new cash-pay, virtual primary care clinic has launched.
Wellnus aims to provide affordable, culturally competent medical care through a membership model. It offers yearly membership plans, discounted for students, starting at $169 a year for unlimited appointments. It is currently accepting new members in California, with plans to expand.
“It’s taking out a lot of the red tape in medical care,” Charvee Buch, Wellnus’ co-founder, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview.
From high costs to long wait times, traditional primary care is broken, executives argue. Physicians are often too busy to spend quality time with the patient each visit. These interactions might leave important patient questions unanswered. A lack of cultural understanding on the part of providers can also harm the patient-provider relationship. That is why cultural competence is a foundational principle at Wellnus.
“When you tackle that population with some understanding of their background, their religious needs … it makes a huge difference,” Charvee Buch said. Each Wellnus visit offers 30 minutes with a physician. Patients who need prescriptions or lab work can still get them through Wellnus but will need to pay for those out-of-pocket or through their insurance.
Wellnus was co-founded by Vishaal Buch, M.D., a student health services physician at the University of California, San Diego. He is also the adult medicine director at a federally qualified health center in Southern California. As a multilingual doctor previously in the U.S. Air Force, Buch has seen patients around the world and understands the value of culturally sensitive medicine.
“He’s been practicing medical care by really focusing on their background, their lifestyle, their environment,” Charvee Buch said of her husband, who serves as Wellnus CEO. “And taking that into consideration has made such an impact on health outcomes.”
The startup is bootstrapped and has not yet sought venture capital funding. It has plans to raise in the near future as it expands, according to Charvee Buch. It has a dozen physicians, as well as some nurse practitioners and technicians, licensed in different states ready to see patients as the platform expands. They all speak different languages.
Long term, the company hopes to onboard pediatricians, specialists and mental health therapists to offer more integrated preventive care. Wellnus also hopes to expand globally. “The really big plan for us is to be the Uber of healthcare,” Charvee Buch said.