Providers are turning to patient engagement to steer results in value-based care models, leading to better outcomes for both patients and physicians. Yet many of these engagement programs focus on providing a one-size-fits-all approach that does not truly engage patients due to cultural and socio-economic differences. ConsejoSano is a multicultural patient engagement platform that leverages 2M+ cultural data points to provide a tailored approach in a patient’s native language, leading to improved adherence. The company’s approach to COVID education and awareness is ensuring that the most vulnerable populations nationwide, for whom COVID is three times more deadly, are protected. Launched in 2017, the company is already working with four of the top five managed care plans in the US.
LA TechWatch caught up with Founder and CEO Abner Mason to learn more about his experience in Mexico sparked the launch of ConsejoSano, the company’s plans to scale its platform, and latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $24.2M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We announced the closing of $17 million in a Series B funding round led by Magnetic Ventures. Additional investors include The American Heart Association/Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund, DaVita Venture Group, Salesforce Ventures, NBA All-Star Victor Oladipo, as well as existing institutional investors 7wireVentures, Impact Engine, Tufts Health Plan, and Wanxiang America.
Tell us about your product or service.
We are a multicultural patient engagement company that combines a deep understanding of culture with a proprietary technology platform to help health plans and providers engage their members and patients, resulting in measurable improvements in health plans and provider performance. We utilize multilingual, multichannel engagement strategies, and culturally-relevant messaging to enhance engagement and steer at-risk patients to more effective self-care and utilization of their healthcare benefits.
What inspired the start of ConsejoSano?
I started the company in 2017, after working in Mexico to reduce workplace discrimination around HIV testing. While there, I noticed a rise in telehealth solutions that had not yet been broadly adopted in the U.S. I initially started ConsejoSano as a telehealth company, and it later shifted to help navigate more people in the U.S. into clinics.
How is it different?
ConsejoSano was launched in 2017 and currently engages 1.5 million patients across 12 states, in 25 different languages, including English. To date, we have amassed more than two million cultural data points which are used as part of our proprietary Cultural Determinants of Health Engine – the only two-way communications platform that utilizes cultural insights to build patient trust.
The platform improves access to care and achieves greater health equity by engaging patients through their preferred communications approach such as texting, e-mail, telephone, and mail. During the last several months alone, ConsejoSano’s platform enabled more than 50,000 telemedicine appointments for lower-income patients covered by Medicaid and Medicare.
In addition to addressing ongoing gaps in care for payers and providers, ConsejoSano’s technology platform is currently improving COVID-19 education and awareness among underserved and vulnerable populations nationwide. Given that the current pandemic is three times more deadly for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people, ConsejoSano is playing a vital role in delivering trusted communications in culturally-fitting and linguistically-familiar formats to diverse populations.
What market you are targeting and how big is it?
The company’s technology-based solution is currently used by four of the top five managed care plans in the country, enabling them to increase patient engagement, improve quality measures such as HEDIS and Star Ratings, and maximize overall health outcomes.
We support our clients as they reach racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. Health disparities for racial and ethnic minorities in the United States take on many forms, including higher rates of chronic disease and premature death compared to the rates among whites. While America is multicultural, healthcare is not. We are on a mission to change that. Our underserved communities need and deserve greater engagement and access to healthcare designed and delivered with them in mind.
What’s your business model?
We utilize a per patient/member per month (PPPM/PMPM) model. This makes it easier for our clients to plan their budgeting as it keeps invoices generally the same from month to month (there are occasional variations for special initiatives or scope of work expansions).
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
ConsejoSano’s technology platform is currently improving COVID-19 education and awareness among underserved and vulnerable populations nationwide. Given that the current pandemic is three times more deadly for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people, ConsejoSano is playing a vital role in delivering trusted communications in culturally-fitting and linguistically-familiar formats to diverse populations.
ConsejoSano’s technology platform is currently improving COVID-19 education and awareness among underserved and vulnerable populations nationwide. Given that the current pandemic is three times more deadly for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people, ConsejoSano is playing a vital role in delivering trusted communications in culturally-fitting and linguistically-familiar formats to diverse populations.
What was the funding process like?
Long, but ultimately rewarding. What the industry needed ConsejoSano to be changed over the raise period, but for the better ultimately. By the time it was all said and done, we had an oversubscribed round and a fantastic new cadre of investors.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
ConsejoSano is a company that prides itself on being built from the companies that we serve, and we’re proud to serve underserved communities. Unfortunately, Venture Capital has a long history of not funding Founders and teams from underserved communities, so it was an exercise in frustration until we started connecting with the right investors who could see both our team and our mission, and how they connected and built our success to date.
Venture Capital has a long history of not funding Founders and teams from underserved communities, so it was an exercise in frustration until we started connecting with the right investors who could see both our team and our mission, and how they connected and built our success to date.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
COVID-19 put us in a unique position in health tech. For the last decade or so, Venture Capital has really been focused on AI and machine learning as the future of large-scale health innovation, really trying to take the people out of health care. But that’s never been ConsejoSano’s style. We’re absolutely a tech company, but we believe that tech has to be balanced with human touch. COVID-19 reintroduced, in a way, the human touch aspect to health care, because we’re all so starved for it.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
The $17 million Series B funding closing is part of an investment ConsejoSano is making to scale its proprietary technology platform to improve engagement, education, and health outcomes among underserved and vulnerable populations.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Hang in there, get creative, and do whatever you can to keep your team as supported as possible. Your company can survive without an office, or free snacks, or any of the typical “startup perks.” You can’t survive without your team.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Growth stage. We have some amazing clients, and amazing team members, but the near term is really going to be about scaling our team so that we can continue to offer the best-in-class service that our clients and the people they serve deserve, as well as expanding our tech solution offerings.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
There are so many great places in LA but I love Bossa Nova.
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