4 ms·

Show HN: JuvMed – Health practice management software

11 points by mariushn 7y ago

nickthemagicman 7y ago
Would this be appropriate for mental health practitioners or is it primarily for physicians?
- mariushn 7y ago
  Thanks for asking. I've started out with psychology my single customer is a psychology clinic. However, it's designed to be applicable to any practice, via dedicated modules, if needed. How should I proceed to target physicians?
  - nickthemagicman 7y ago
    Hi thanks for responding it's a good site. I was actually inquiring for a friend of mine who's a social worker and has a small Private practice. I think a major issue you might encounter is HIPAA type regulations. Medical practitioners are extremely risk-averse when it comes to patient information. I didn't see anything on the site about this.
    - mariushn 7y ago
      Right. Since this is bootstrapped, I was hoping to get some customers, to be able to invest in certification. Would you see any path going forward without certification for now?
      - nickthemagicman 7y ago
        I would never give up on any project I was working on. Everything has challenges, you just need to figure out how to overcome or pivot in some way.
skwb 7y ago
If I may be blunt, it seems to lack a TON of features any modern practicing doctor would want. A lot of doctors need the ability to do documentation for reimbursement, and I don't really see any demonstration that this was taken seriously. Given maybe the idea is to only focus on practice management, well you're certainly then going to want to be able to integrate into major EHR vendors, and well they probably don't have any incentive to help. As a person who has a close idea of where the current EHR market is (MS in health econ and a PhD candidate in health informatics), I'm not convinced that there's a significant marketshare that hasn't been met by EHR vendors (allscripts/athenahealth/cerner).
- mariushn 7y ago
  > A lot of doctors need the ability to do documentation for reimbursement, and I don't really see any demonstration that this was taken seriously. Not yet. I'm trying to find some paying customers before investing more. > you're certainly then going to want to be able to integrate into major EHR vendors, and well they probably don't have any incentive to help. Indeed. I was aiming to evolve into an EHR itself to overcome this. > I'm not convinced that there's a significant marketshare Since I have a hard time finding customers, this seems right. How would to recommend to proceed to carve out a niche in this market?
  - skwb 7y ago
    I would say your primary strength right now is that you're clearly skilled in developing an aesthetically pleasing front end experience, something that EPIC and other major vendors don't do well (there's an entire PhD thesis to this, but the tldr is that the vendors primary 'selling point' is to help increase revenue from reimbursements). The biggest opportunity area imho are clinical 'apps' using interoperability standards (HL7/FHIR). While EPIC and CERNER have a lot of functionality, they don't cover everything (like certain clinical calculators/ better visual representations of data). There are certainly unmet clinical needs from these apps, and if you're willing to put in the effort to do more background research, I'm certain you can find some of these unmet needs. It's admittedly a very different strategy that you're currently pitching, but I think it's where there is significant growth for For further references that are useful: [1]. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-overdose-harm-in-a-wired-hospital/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-overdose-harm-in-a-wired-h... [2]. https://apporchard.epic.com/ https://apporchard.epic.com/ [3]. https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/10/everything-you-need-know-about-smart-fhir-perfcon https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/10/everything-yo... [4]. https://apps.smarthealthit.org/ https://apps.smarthealthit.org/
klinskyc 7y ago
Welcome to the Practice Management biz! 1) I'm not seeing any mention of HIPAA (or other medical privacy laws) compliance. Lack of compliance would be a non-starter for basically all medical professionals. 2) This is wildly cheap, when compared to other EHRs like AthenaHealth or Dr. Chrono. Part of that makes sense due to the reduced feature set you're offering, but something to consider.
- mariushn 7y ago
  Thanks :) > 1) I'm not seeing any mention of HIPAA (or other medical privacy laws) compliance. Lack of compliance would be a non-starter for basically all medical professionals. Since this is bootstrapped, I was hoping to get some customers, to be able to invest in certification. Would you see any path going forward without certification for now? > 2) This is wildly cheap, when compared to other EHRs I was hoping for this to be a differentiator, since this is at beginning. What would be a better alternative?
chrisgd 7y ago
As a healthcare investment banker that just sold an EHR, practice management and RCM I think it is really good. A lot of smaller doctor practices don’t have the ability to schedule online so this could be valuable for them. I would think about adding a patient facing iPad app so patients can check-in in the office and something to accept payments. To respond to other comments, this isn’t an EHR so you probably don’t have to be HIPAA complaint.
- skwb 7y ago
  Yeah, but there's not exactly a strong trend of more independent non-hospital affiliated practices springing up creating a huge market [1, 2]. I also sorta doubt that the practices that have a large need for EHR/RCM (i.e. anyone who takes medicare/private insurance) don't already have a EHR/RCM solution already that has this functionality built in a la athenahealth/practice fusion. [1]. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0130 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0130 [2]. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/healthcare-leaders-look-at-past-present-and-future-consolidation https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/healthcare-leader...
  - mariushn 7y ago
    Confirming this by me having a hard time finding customers...
  - chrisgd 7y ago
    True, but there is a market. The names you mentioned are moving upstream and charging a higher price than many independent physicians are willing to spend. Those names also have a practice management tool but want you to bundle their EHR. An independent time management platform makes sense to me.
- mariushn 7y ago
  Thanks Chris, appreciate your insight! Besides the functionality suggestions that you listed, how would you advise finding some customers? There's only one customer now, a small psychology clinic. I aimed at finding more in psychology, but the problem isn't a pain. May I ask for your contact info? Mine is marius@juvmed.com -- thanks!

11 points by mariushn 7y ago

nickthemagicman 7y ago

Would this be appropriate for mental health practitioners or is it primarily for physicians?

mariushn 7y ago
Thanks for asking. I've started out with psychology my single customer is a psychology clinic. However, it's designed to be applicable to any practice, via dedicated modules, if needed. How should I proceed to target physicians?
- nickthemagicman 7y ago
  Hi thanks for responding it's a good site. I was actually inquiring for a friend of mine who's a social worker and has a small Private practice. I think a major issue you might encounter is HIPAA type regulations. Medical practitioners are extremely risk-averse when it comes to patient information. I didn't see anything on the site about this.
  - mariushn 7y ago
    Right. Since this is bootstrapped, I was hoping to get some customers, to be able to invest in certification. Would you see any path going forward without certification for now?
    - nickthemagicman 7y ago
      I would never give up on any project I was working on. Everything has challenges, you just need to figure out how to overcome or pivot in some way.

skwb 7y ago

If I may be blunt, it seems to lack a TON of features any modern practicing doctor would want. A lot of doctors need the ability to do documentation for reimbursement, and I don't really see any demonstration that this was taken seriously. Given maybe the idea is to only focus on practice management, well you're certainly then going to want to be able to integrate into major EHR vendors, and well they probably don't have any incentive to help. As a person who has a close idea of where the current EHR market is (MS in health econ and a PhD candidate in health informatics), I'm not convinced that there's a significant marketshare that hasn't been met by EHR vendors (allscripts/athenahealth/cerner).

mariushn 7y ago
> A lot of doctors need the ability to do documentation for reimbursement, and I don't really see any demonstration that this was taken seriously. Not yet. I'm trying to find some paying customers before investing more. > you're certainly then going to want to be able to integrate into major EHR vendors, and well they probably don't have any incentive to help. Indeed. I was aiming to evolve into an EHR itself to overcome this. > I'm not convinced that there's a significant marketshare Since I have a hard time finding customers, this seems right. How would to recommend to proceed to carve out a niche in this market?
- skwb 7y ago
  I would say your primary strength right now is that you're clearly skilled in developing an aesthetically pleasing front end experience, something that EPIC and other major vendors don't do well (there's an entire PhD thesis to this, but the tldr is that the vendors primary 'selling point' is to help increase revenue from reimbursements). The biggest opportunity area imho are clinical 'apps' using interoperability standards (HL7/FHIR). While EPIC and CERNER have a lot of functionality, they don't cover everything (like certain clinical calculators/ better visual representations of data). There are certainly unmet clinical needs from these apps, and if you're willing to put in the effort to do more background research, I'm certain you can find some of these unmet needs. It's admittedly a very different strategy that you're currently pitching, but I think it's where there is significant growth for For further references that are useful: [1]. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-overdose-harm-in-a-wired-hospital/ https://www.wired.com/2015/04/the-overdose-harm-in-a-wired-h... [2]. https://apporchard.epic.com/ https://apporchard.epic.com/ [3]. https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/10/everything-you-need-know-about-smart-fhir-perfcon https://healthtechmagazine.net/article/2018/10/everything-yo... [4]. https://apps.smarthealthit.org/ https://apps.smarthealthit.org/

klinskyc 7y ago

Welcome to the Practice Management biz! 1) I'm not seeing any mention of HIPAA (or other medical privacy laws) compliance. Lack of compliance would be a non-starter for basically all medical professionals. 2) This is wildly cheap, when compared to other EHRs like AthenaHealth or Dr. Chrono. Part of that makes sense due to the reduced feature set you're offering, but something to consider.

mariushn 7y ago
Thanks :) > 1) I'm not seeing any mention of HIPAA (or other medical privacy laws) compliance. Lack of compliance would be a non-starter for basically all medical professionals. Since this is bootstrapped, I was hoping to get some customers, to be able to invest in certification. Would you see any path going forward without certification for now? > 2) This is wildly cheap, when compared to other EHRs I was hoping for this to be a differentiator, since this is at beginning. What would be a better alternative?

chrisgd 7y ago

As a healthcare investment banker that just sold an EHR, practice management and RCM I think it is really good. A lot of smaller doctor practices don’t have the ability to schedule online so this could be valuable for them. I would think about adding a patient facing iPad app so patients can check-in in the office and something to accept payments. To respond to other comments, this isn’t an EHR so you probably don’t have to be HIPAA complaint.

skwb 7y ago
Yeah, but there's not exactly a strong trend of more independent non-hospital affiliated practices springing up creating a huge market [1, 2]. I also sorta doubt that the practices that have a large need for EHR/RCM (i.e. anyone who takes medicare/private insurance) don't already have a EHR/RCM solution already that has this functionality built in a la athenahealth/practice fusion. [1]. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0130 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2016.0130 [2]. https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/healthcare-leaders-look-at-past-present-and-future-consolidation https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/practices/healthcare-leader...
- mariushn 7y ago
  Confirming this by me having a hard time finding customers...
- chrisgd 7y ago
  True, but there is a market. The names you mentioned are moving upstream and charging a higher price than many independent physicians are willing to spend. Those names also have a practice management tool but want you to bundle their EHR. An independent time management platform makes sense to me.
mariushn 7y ago
Thanks Chris, appreciate your insight! Besides the functionality suggestions that you listed, how would you advise finding some customers? There's only one customer now, a small psychology clinic. I aimed at finding more in psychology, but the problem isn't a pain. May I ask for your contact info? Mine is marius@juvmed.com -- thanks!