Some people turned to baking during the pandemic. Others binged “Tiger King.” Former world No. 1 tennis player Andy Roddick founded a telehealth company. How’s that? In the pandemic’s early months, Roddick would get together on Zoom with pals over a glass of wine. Two of his surgeon friends griped about how difficult it was to diagnose people over FaceTime, which inspired Roddick to look for a solution. As a player, Roddick would have to travel long distances for care — often to be diagnosed with relatively minor ailments. “That’s someone who had access to the best care and still kind of had some speed bumps,” Roddick told Ben. So Roddick started ViewFi, a company with a telehealth platform that uses artificial intelligence-enabled motion-detecting technology to better track body movement, to help doctors make more accurate diagnoses. How’s it going? The pandemic fueled an explosion in telehealth investment and Roddick's company recently struck a deal with Transcarent, a digital health firm valued at more than $1.6 billion, to bring the technology to its customers. Roddick echoes the concerns of many in the telehealth industry about the patchwork system of state licensure that makes it more difficult for providers to scale and deliver care across state lines. But he’s not overly concerned with what’s going on with regulation and in Washington. “We can be proactive about actually trying to figure out solutions,” Roddick said. “If we can create a cheaper access point that’s more convenient … we should try to do that without waiting around for permission.” Glen Tullman, CEO of Transcarent, which sells e-health platforms to large- and mid-sized employers, hopes that Congress will make permanent a law that currently allows high-deductible health plans to cover virtual care before patients reach their deductibles. He points to UPS as a client with a strong use case for ViewFi. “They have 80,000 people,” Tullman said. “They’re using their bodies every day ... They're professional athletes — they’re just doing something different … It’s really important for them to get the best advice quickly.”
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