This company is bringing healthcare to patients' front doors

The workplace isn’t the only thing to build a permanent presence within our homes as a result of the pandemic — healthcare is also finding its place in our personal spaces.

After years working in healthcare, Naama Stauber Beckler realized that the existing system was failing some individuals, especially those managing health conditions that require at-home supplies. So she set out to found Better Health, a direct-to-consumer service provider that delivers medical supplies right to patients’ doorsteps.

“I identified a gap in the market for people with chronic conditions who need to use [medical devices at home],” Stauber Breckler says of the operation, which she launched in 2019. “For people with chronic conditions and who need different medical devices and supplies at home, the process of getting them, finding the ideal product for you, learning how to use them and integrating into your life is really broken.”

Read more: Long story short: Get ready for big changes in healthcare this year

Traditionally, getting medical products sent home with patients from hospitals was a lengthy process — it began with a doctor’s recommendation then required a lot of legwork on the patient’s end to find providers who carried the product. Then, they were left to connect distributors and doctors, contacting insurance providers on their own, and finally, going out and picking up their supplies.

With Better Health, medical supplies, such as catheters and colostomy bags, are delivered directly to patients once approved by doctors and distributors, and bundled with telehealth tools including education and peer support.

More than 4.5 million people receive healthcare at home and rely on companies to provide and service their oxygen machines, wheelchairs, hospital-style beds, prosthetic devices and other durable home medical equipment, according to the CDC. And between 725,000 and one million people in the United States are currently living with an ostomy (a surgical opening to help waste leave the body), according to the United Ostomy Associations of America. An estimated 100 million urinary catheters are sold worldwide each year.

Read more: As long as employers control employees’ healthcare, life-saving technologies will go underutilized

Prior to the pandemic, the traditional method left a lot of room for error, Stauber Beckler says, noting that patients often had to visit the hospital just to secure necessary supplies. COVID-19, of course, magnified the issue: as access to both hospitals and doctors dwindled, patients suffering from chronic conditions at home were left scrambling for solutions.

“Something really we've seen over the last couple of years, and especially during the pandemic, is just how much telehealth has evolved,” Stauber Beckler says, noting that using telehealth to educate patients won’t just make life easier for consumers, but also alleviate unnecessary stress and demand on hospitals. “By serving underserved, maybe smaller-in-volume populations — like those enrolled in Medicaid, the LGBTQ community, women — we are already seeing better solutions emerging for them.”