Felicity Yost didn’t plan to become a healthcare CEO. The former tech product manager, now CEO of women’s health company Tia Health, said she cofounded the company after becoming frustrated with her own experiences as a patient.
She and her cofounder, Carolyn Witte, spent years dealing with what many Americans experience: a hyper-fragmented health system that involves moving from doctor to doctor, feeling uncared for by providers and insurance companies.
“We took a step back from that and said, ‘Wow, this is really crazy. Why is this experience so bad?’” Yost said in an exclusive interview with Cure.
After speaking with multiple friends and reflecting on their experiences, the two cofounders realized the current healthcare system is particularly challenging for women.
“Every single woman that we talked to had a story about a bad healthcare experience,” Yost said.
That’s not surprising; a recent survey conducted by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found that although women have more health-related appointments than men, they are 50 percent more likely to delay or skip these appointments due to factors including affordability, long wait times and negative prior medical experiences.
Those bad experiences are what prompted Yost and Witte to found Tia Health, a healthcare company focused on women’s health — from the patient’s perspective.
“I think that's fundamentally part of what makes Tia innovative,” Yost said, “we design it with the user in mind.”
Though Yost and Witte didn’t come from a startup background, they still have plenty of expertise. Yost got a certificate in economics at the Sorbonne during her undergraduate years at Cornell, and began her career at the investment firm Bridgewater Associates. Witte, who left Tia last year, was a team lead at Google Creative Lab.
Through a $24 million Series A in 2020, followed by a $100 million Series B only one year later, Tia has gained legendary investors including Lone Pine Capital and Melinda French Gates.
Tia Focuses on Primary Care, Specialist Collaborations to Delivery Holistic Women’s Health
Yost and Witte, college best friends, founded the San Francisco-based company in 2017 with a focus on primary care. It was especially important to Yost to have primary care doctors who would listen to women and take their accounts seriously.
“A lot of times women are not listened to, or their account of pain is kind of glossed over,” she said. When they began hiring clinicians at Tia, it was important for Yost to find providers who “loved to listen to patient stories.”
Another explicit focus, Yost said, is finding primary care providers who can effectively collaborate with specialist providers, and integrate their recommendations into patient treatment.
“Women's care journeys are typically more complex than men's,” Yost said. Women are more likely to be impacted by a range of health conditions compared to men, including migraines, mental health issues and autoimmune disorders. It’s important to have providers that can work together to manage a patient’s care holistically, instead of each specialty providing care in a silo.
“The reality of the way that our system is designed today is that we actually don't collaborate effectively across different specialties,” Yost said, “so it's very challenging to actually get a comprehensive view of somebody's health.”
Tia’s primary care model hopes to change that.
How Tia Stays Competitive in a Crowded Healthcare Landscape
Since Tia launched eight years ago, the landscape of women’s digital health companies has become increasingly crowded. Maven Clinic, Hers and Midi Health are all digital health companies that also provide health services to women and compete for Tia’s patient population.
When asked what sets Tia apart from these other companies, Yost said that Tia’s expanded focus on opening brick-and-mortar clinics makes it distinct.
In 2021, the company opened its first in-person clinic in collaboration with CommonSpirit Health in Arizona, and it now has clinics in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York. In an interview with Fierce Healthcare earlier this year, Yost said that Tia plans to expand to even more cities in the near future, including Boston, Chicago and Atlanta.
These clinics are an essential part of Tia’s model, Yost told Cure, because it enables providers to do more than just virtually write a prescription. Now, doctors can also do ultrasounds, blood tests, pap smears and other preventative tests that women need.
“We do more than just a narrow part of a care journey,” Yost said. “We are able to provide comprehensive care for her across her lifespan.”
Though Yost said that Tia stands apart in the field of women’s digital health, she said there is always room for more companies.
“There’s a lot of women who are still not getting the care and need they deserve,” she said. “I think the reality on the ground is that we need many different models to help solve the problem.”