Episode #175 An AI-enabled Solution for Affordable & Accessible Primary Care – with Neal Khosla, Co-founder & CEO of Curai Health

Creating a New Healthcare

Friends,

The very first question I asked our guest today, Neal Khosla, was, “If AI is the solution, what’s the problem?” His response was disarmingly true. We don’t have enough Primary Care providers and they don’t have enough time.

When I asked Neal to define AI, he didn’t go into the usual tech jargon. Instead, he described the specific needs patients have – needs that are not being met – like convenient access to affordable care, preventive care, assistance with medication adherence and lifestyle changes, chronic disease management, and timely, consistent follow-up. We then spent most of the interview with him illustrating how AI is assisting providers in actually meeting those needs.

Three quick takeaways from this interview:

1. Neal actually knows what he’s talking about. He’s been named one of Time’s Magazine 100 most influential leaders in AI and featured in publications like CNBC and Forbes. Prior to co-founding Curai Health in 2017, Khosla was a machine learning researcher at Google and Stanford. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science & Mathematics from Stanford University, and a Master’s degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Artificial Intelligence.

2. Neal isn’t talking about some potential future, He’s talking about current services offered by Curai Health – a text-based, AI-empowered, omni-channel primary care model – which is available direct-to-consumer through Amazon, to employees through their employer-sponsored health plans, and to health systems.

3. One of the things that surprised me was how inexpensive the monthly cost is for this primary care service. The payment is subscription-based, so customers can use the service as much as they like without repetitive co-payments or additional fees. Another surprise was learning that Curai is now being offered to homeless people in Los Angeles – which is incredibly humanistic and feasible through the AI-enabled primary care model.

In Beyond The Walls, I make the point that humanism has to be enabled by the digital revolution and business model transformation. Neal and his colleagues at Curai are one of the most profound exemplars of humanistic rebel leaders who are transforming healthcare – not by making things more efficient or effective, but by redefining what it means to be effective.

Throughout this interview, Neal refers to “in your world” and “in our world” when he distinguishes between legacy models of care delivery and the AI-enabled approach he’s created and is rapidly evolving. By the end of this interview I suspect you’re going to want to get your healthcare in his world – which you can check out at www.curaihealth.com.

Zeev Neuwirth, MD