7 ms·

Two that I'm comfortable sharing are: Cerebral (cerebral.com): first, their whole business model is about being a pill farm for controlled substances. So, out

• caseyohara 5y ago
  Very strange that Simone Biles (the olympic gymnast) is Chief Impact Officer at Cerebral, front and center on the homepage.
  • fatjokes 5y ago
    Serious question: what the hell is a chief impact officer? Isn't former prince Harry also one for some startup? Is it basically just an celebrity spokesperson?
    • manigandham 5y ago
      Yes, that's what it is.
    • me_me_mu_mu 5y ago
      When I see stuff like that, I instantly take the company less seriously or ignore them unless the person in charge is someone eccentric like Elon. At least he is capable of running his company in a ruthlessly effective way even with wonky titles and shenanigans.
      • bombcar 5y ago
        Chief Impact Officer at SpaceX would be an entirely different role I feel. :)
      • lillecarl 5y ago
        When I see someone endorse Elon Musk, I instantly take them less serious and avoid getting into into discussions with them, unless they own a Model X. At least it means they're capable of purchasing low-quality luxury goods....?
    • jen20 5y ago
      I don't know what a Chief Impact Officer is. However, Harry is not a "former" prince - he is still Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and sixth in line to the throne.
      • fatjokes 5y ago
        Didn't he have to give up royal titles when he abdicated? Why do I even know this...
        • jen20 5y ago
          He didn’t abdicate (nor can he). He just became a “non active” family member. The title is conferred by birth not by job - so he is very much still Prince Harry!
    • ciropantera 5y ago
      I feel like people stopped giving credibility to celebrity endorsement in the traditional form because they know celebrities are just getting paid to read a script, so companies had to come up with something that signals a deeper relationship with the brand, and that something is this phony C-level position. The celebrities also benefit from being able to add "entrepreneur" to their Instagram bios. I believe this trend started with Intel and it's "Chief Innovation Officer" (or something like that) Will.i.am a couple of years ago
    • KennyBlanken 5y ago
      A way to give a C-suite job to someone who was "homeschooled", has a degree from an online school she is a "brand ambassador" for, and zero professional experience.
    • jrockway 5y ago
      "chief X officer" seems to be the new "director" or "VP" type title.
      • hef19898 5y ago
        I personally know one of those!
  • Fezzik 5y ago
    Not to sound silly - but how is it strange? They offered her 6+ figures to use her name and then they used her name… seems relatively straightforward. Mayim Bialik is hocking “brain pills”; Matt Damon, Snoop, and every other celebrity is hocking crypto currencies. Most celebrities will put their names on almost anything if the price is right.
    • CyberDildonics 5y ago
      Those are commercials, those companies aren't lying to people that celebrities are actually involved with the companies.
      • BLanen 5y ago
        https://www.3dsystems.com/press-releases/3d-systems-appoints-william-its-chief-creative-officer https://www.3dsystems.com/press-releases/3d-systems-appoints...
      • lazide 5y ago
        If they give her a nominal position, seems like they probably aren’t lying here?
        • BizarroLand 5y ago
          I mean, can anyone without looking it up, say exactly what the typical job responsibilities for the Chief Impact Officer in a typical company is? I would guess that her "job" is to have a recognizable name and face that they can put on her advertising, and probably to not go around committing crimes or doing things that would make her name less valuable to the public at large in the process.
• fire 5y ago
  I use onemedical because it's easy to find providers in my area with them but I recently got notified of a class action lawsuit against them for... misleading people into thinking they need a membership to use their facilities? I'm still confused on whether this means I actually need this membership in order to book appointments etc. https://www.onemedicalsettlement.com/ https://www.onemedicalsettlement.com/
  • fragmede 5y ago
    You can still book and have appointments without a membership, but you have to call the office instead of being able to use the app. It's totally undocumented but I'm guessing it's some legal continuing-care thing as to why they have to offer it
• shp0ngle 5y ago
  Wow, this is a depressing read. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-app-over-prescribed-adhd-meds-ex-employees-say https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-... https://archive.ph/aKcMK https://archive.ph/aKcMK
  • chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
    Cerebral (read: Uber for drugs)
    • sebmellen 5y ago
      SoftBank is a huge Uber investor and also threw $300 million into their latest round.
      • bigDinosaur 5y ago
        Asking for a friend, but is the secret to receiving Softbank capital just to be either a scam or a highly misleading business? I still can't work out why they ever invested so much in WeWork.
        • hef19898 5y ago
          At the very least SoftBank money is a good indicator of something fishy. If get an answer so, let me know. A friend of could use some SoftBank millions as well!
        • thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
          This is the best write-up of the Softbank business model: https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margins?s=r https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margi... In short, the background of Softbank founders is in plumbing of the financial system. They intentionally bid up dubious companies into obviously unsustainable valuations, with the aim to make them highly illiquid. Faced with illiquid stocks, many of the assumptions behind trading models break down, and obscurities of the financial plumbing come to fore - the water Softbank knows really well. Eventually, index funds include a portion of the bid-up companies on their balance sheets, FOMO investors roll in - that's when Softbank unloads their bags
• Karunamon 5y ago
  I just signed up with Cerebral yesterday and have an appointment in half an hour...
  • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
    FYI: Controlled substance prescriptions will be registered in your state’s controlled substance database. Any future provider will be able to see that you’ve gotten pills from a pill mill doctor if they care to look, at least until the records fall off. This is basically the opioid epidemic being repeated with amphetamine. If you believe you actually have ADHD, get a real appointment with a real doctor and build a real relationship that doesn’t involve a cash-only subscription to a pill mill. Using a pill mill will jeopardize your future doctor relationships and the pill mills will be shut down as soon as the COVID controlled prescribing exceptions expire.
    • Karrot_Kream 5y ago
      Ugh stop trying to demonize this. I have a diagnosed problem which I used to take a controlled substance for from a psych who I had dedicated sessions with. Every time I went to the pharmacist, I had to put my name on a binder for the "controlled substances list" and got dark looks from the pharmacist every time I filled my prescription in. It was embarrassing enough at first admitting to friends and family that I sough mental health help. Attitudes like yours intimidate so many people who rely on controlled substances for living fulfilling everyday lives. With the help of my psych I left the controlled substance, but a significant factor was the stigma I'd face from friends, family, and the judgemental pharmacists who knew nothing about me. Pill mill or not, let people find a way to live their best lives. Unless you're a doctor or healthcare professional, stop telling others how to live their lives.
      • refurb 5y ago
        I'm sorry, how are they "demonizing" it? Sounds more like a warning, and a pretty reasonable one.
      • lillecarl 5y ago
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > first, their whole business model is about being a pill farm for controlled substances Before COVID, you couldn’t get a prescription for controlled substances without first meeting a provider in person. This law was enacted years ago because pill mills were popping up everywhere and dispensing controlled substances to people in exchange for $200+ phone calls. They’d do a minimal 5 minute call with anyone who signed up, speedrun through a prepared script, and then send the patient their controlled substance prescription of choice. You then made a follow-up appointment the next month for your refill, which was an even shorter phone call. They didn’t accept insurance because no sane insurance company would deal with them. Their target audience only wanted to pay their way to prescriptions and didn’t mind. And this is exactly what Cerebral is doing all over again. The COVID exceptions for in-person prescribing will theoretically expire at some point, but until they do there are several companies like Cerebral trying to cash in as much as possible with Instagram and TikTok ad campaigns to convince as many people as possible to sign up for literal Adderall pay-for-prescription subscriptions. Before anyone rushes off to sign up, keep in mind that these controlled substance prescriptions will be logged in your state’s prescribing database and doctors everywhere are catching on to these pill mills. If you show up to a real doctor later asking for a prescription, they might check your prescribing history and think twice after seeing that you were getting prescriptions from known pill mills nowhere near you. Pharmacies are also getting fed up with the sudden influx of prescriptions from remote doctors for scheduled substances. I really hope this business model gets crushed ASAP, because if it’s allowed to continue then we’re going to see a crackdown on ADHD diagnoses and prescribing in the same way that pain management has become exceedingly difficult to come by (for true pain patients) in the wake of the opioid pill mill epidemic.
  • beambot 5y ago
    Is there any evidence to suggest adverse affects from all these excess scripts? Because if there's not... Then it sounds like the easiest & best solution would be to reschedule the drugs and make them (mostly) OTC. I can think of dozens of OTC drugs in Mexico that are a PITA to get in states due to unnecessary healthcare visits...
    • 5y ago
• stadium 5y ago
  Worked at one softbank backed company for a short time and the amount of money and heads they dumped at any problem was incredible. Literally they tried to grow and scale at all costs. That doesn't work for mental health though. Money can't buy more therapists to meet patient demand. Edit: more importantly I would never trust my mental health with a company that takes money from Khashoggi's murderers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Investment_Fund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Investment_Fund https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khashoggi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Jamal_Khash...
  • shp0ngle 5y ago
    I worked at one SB company and yeah, they had basically unlimited money to throw at problem, but their main competitors had too, from what I heard. The funding world is _weird_ and I really wonder when the music will stop. I thought (hoped? against my short-time self-interest) that COVID will be such a crisis that will make people reconsider all these crazy spendings, but, apparently not! YOLO I guess
  • unmole 5y ago
    > I would never trust my mental health with a company that takes money from Khashoggi's murderers. It's interesting that Khashoggi's assassination is what seems to bother people most about the Saudis. Not the invasion of Yemen that has killed over a hundred thousand civilians or the littany of other crimes.
    • hef19898 5y ago
      Because Khashoggi's murder is so well covered and so just blatantly bold. The war in Yemen doesn't bother people that much because a) who knows where Yemen actually is b) Yemen is a poor and mostly muslim country c) Saudi is buying western weapons and selling us oil d) Saudi is hosting the Formula 1. Considering what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen, with implicit support from NATO countries, and what Russia is doing in Ukraine we (as in Europe and the "West") should have stopped all business relationships with Saudi quite a while ago. Saudi's actions bother me so, up to the point I refuse to work as much as possible with them, for them or with money from them. Luckily, for now at least, that is made easy since (to my knowledge) my employer isn't funded by Saudi blood money. It is funded by Chinese money so, which poses an interesting dilemma.
• disillusioned 5y ago
  In fairness to One Medical, there's fraud like Theranos where the core conceit of what they're selling isn't actually _real_, and there's shady activities that are going to get them what I would hope is a pretty serious fine and some consequences (but who knows, America) like engineering some line cutting for vaccines, or the class action wherein they very significantly downplay that anyone can book an appointment manually without paying the fee. At its core, One Medical is still offering actual healthcare services. I use them and appreciate the convenience of the app and integrated EMR that they offer. I'm not pleased about the shadiness here, obviously, but it's still so wildly better an experience of primary care that I'm not going to switch over it.
  • reureu 5y ago
    That's true - One Medical is definitely responding to a real need (lack of easy access to primary care). I don't think they'll outright collapse like the other examples, but I would think/hope there's a major shake up in their leadership. They've done a good job at creating a real loyal base of customers, but they've also painted themselves into a corner with their business model. On one hand, they sell memberships en masse to self-insured employers claiming they lower total cost of care so can save them money. On the other hand, they're building partnerships with large healthcare systems, where the partners view One Medical as a source of insured patients that will eventually need specialty services. But large healthcare systems are notorious for being expensive. So, their two main business models are in conflict with each other. I think some of the things we're seeing are a reflection of this lack of a coherent strategy, and some of the flailing that comes with different arms of the business having opposing needs. It's interesting you mention their integrated EMR. One Medical builds their own medical record system and patient app. My understanding is it doesn't use any of the standards the rest of the health tech world uses, which is why (last I heard) they weren't offering HealthKit integration -- not that there's not a demand for it (with such a tech focused user based, I imagine it's a common request), but rather they couldn't deliver on it quickly because their infrastructure just isn't set up that way.
• ryukoposting 5y ago
  As someone with a long-standing Vyvanse prescription, I find the concept of ADHD pill mills horrifying. These drugs develop dependencies in long-term users (I would know). They can have pretty nasty side effects, and even the more benign options can still cause mood swings and appetite issues (again, I would know). For most people, it can take years before tolerances stabilize (I got lucky). They probably have long-term effects on your brain that we don't know about yet, but meth gives us a good guess.
• browningstreet 5y ago
  My employer gives us OneMedical. I can’t say I really understand what it is. I concluded its a concierge service for some tests and procedures. Given the location of their offices, not surprised about the trouble they got themselves into. They seem like another in the pile of companies who provide enterprise scale HR services, billed at scale. Calm, too (the idea of celebrity voices leading meditations seems orthogonal to my mind).