Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowRevenue growth FY 2022 to 2024: 183.52%
2024 revenue: $5.37 million
How it started: WellBridge is the brainchild of Dr. Eric Inman, an anesthesiologist who’s been practicing in the Indianapolis area since 2007, and his best friend, Jeff Williams, “a serial entrepreneur.” They each visited the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which works with self-funded employers and patients who pay out of pocket to create what Inman calls “a completely transparent, fairly priced system,” and used that model for WellBridge. Operations and prices are listed on its website.
Facilities and clients: WellBridge has four operating rooms and does almost every outpatient procedure that can be done other than spine and ophthalmology, Inman said. Approximately 65 surgeons are credentialed to do surgery at Wellbridge. Eighty businesses across the state that have self-funded medical insurance plans have signed up with WellBridge.
An example: Inman offers this as a sample of how WellBridge helps save money: Say you need your gallbladder out and it costs $22,000 at a hospital. You would likely owe roughly $4,000 for the deductible, so your employer would pay the remaining $18,000. At WellBridge, the cost for the procedure would be only $10,000. Your employer, who would owe $6,000 of that, “would have no problem paying that employee’s $4,000 deductible because they’re [still] going to net a savings of $8,000” ($10,000 to WellBridge vs. $18,000 to the hospital).
Word of mouth: Williams attributes WellBridge’s growth to getting the word out. “Our patient-experience scores are off the charts, and we know our pricing is 50% less” than hospitals charge, he said. “Now that it’s here and we’ve been around three years, we’re here to stay. So, why would you overpay for your medical care?”
Transparent pricing: Williams said consumers have been programmed to believe they can’t figure out how much health care costs. “Eric and I have figured that out, and so we just take all the variables that go into doing that surgery and we put those together and then we put our margin for the business on top of that—and there you go. We just applied regular business practices to medicine, and then, lo and behold, it’s possible.”•
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