Healthee’s founders
In this installment of our series on the Israeli Insurtech delegation attending the upcoming ITC Vegas convention in October 2024, we are thrilled to introduce our readers to the innovative companies reshaping the insurance landscape, continuing with Healthee, and delve into the depth of their journeys, challenges, and cutting-edge technologies through in-depth interviews.
Company Overview
The US healthcare system is too complex, leading to suboptimal care. Employees often don’t utilize benefits, resulting in wasted costs for employers and poorer health outcomes. Healthee’s mission is to improve employee well-being by eliminating confusion and empowering informed health decisions. Healthee simplifies the complex US healthcare system with a personalized, AI-powered platform. Our services include care navigation, benefits administration, open enrollment, plan renewals, and telehealth. Healthee helps enhance health outcomes, satisfy employees, and reduce costs.
– What inspired you to start this company?
As founders from the medical, insurance, business, and technology worlds, we set out to remove the barrier that prevents 180M employed Americans from receiving the healthcare and wellbeing they deserve.
Product and Innovation
– What is your main product or service?
Healthee is a comprehensive healthcare navigation platform designed to simplify and enhance the healthcare journey for employees and their dependents. Centralized in a single app, Healthee integrates a variety of innovative tools and services to ensure users have access to the best healthcare options tailored to their needs. Our main offerings include:
Navigation App centralizes essential features like provider search, urgent care, coverage inquiries, and live deductible tracking, consolidating all health benefits in one location and integrating cost breakdowns, quality scores, and direct appointment bookings.
Plan Comparison Tool provides tailored healthcare plan recommendations during critical moments like open enrollment or life events, using personalized algorithms and detailed data analysis to optimize costs and coverage.
Zoe, Personal Digital Health Assistant, powered by proprietary AI technology, offers live chat support, addressing a wide range of queries about medical, dental, and vision benefits. Zoe provides detailed information on coverage, costs, in-network providers, healthcare terms, accumulators, and out-of-pocket expenses.
Live Support with US-based, bilingual benefits experts for live reviews of plan options, assisting with coverage questions, bill reviews, claim submissions, provider recommendations, prescription coverage, cost estimations, and general member education.
Telehealth Services through partnerships like Doctegrity, ensuring convenient, co-pay-free access to medical and behavioral health services. Telehealth options are seamlessly incorporated into Zoe’s responses for guided, cost-effective care.
– How does your product differentiate itself from existing solutions in the market?
Healthee’s competitive differentiators include our AI-powered assistant, Zoe, who provides personalized health guidance and predictive insights 24/7, and our seamless integration with existing healthcare platforms, making our service a one-stop health benefits hub. Our superpower lies in our ability to humanize AI technology, combining instant, AI-based interactions with human support from Benefits Specialists. This blend ensures a superior user experience, reduced healthcare costs, and enhanced benefits utilization—all while saving HR teams an average of 9 hours per week on benefits administration tasks.
– Can you share any unique features or innovations your product offers?
Our product offers several unique features and innovations that set it apart in the health benefits space. Healthee is the first AI-powered platform that puts control directly into employees’ hands through our intelligent assistant, Zoe. With Zoe, employees can get all their questions answered, from coverage details to booking appointments, estimating costs, and improving health literacy. Beyond this, they also have access to a concierge service with our benefits specialists, providing personalized support and guidance. This one-stop-shop can be tailored to fit the unique benefits experience each employee wishes to have, ensuring a seamless and empowering user experience.
Market and Problem-Solving
– What specific problem are you addressing in the insurance industry?
The privatized US healthcare system is notoriously complex and confusing for the average American, often resulting in suboptimal care experiences. Employees are confused about their plan coverage and often don’t know how to select the best plans for themselves or their families. This results in underutilized health benefits, which means employers are paying for healthcare that employees aren’t using—then employees aren’t getting healthier over time and will be less likely to identify high-cost claim conditions through preventive screenings. The root of the issue is low health literacy, which keeps employees from maximizing their benefits. Healthee’s mission is to improve health outcomes by eliminating confusion around benefits and coverage. By providing a clear and comprehensive understanding of their options, Healthee empowers employees to make informed decisions about their health.
– Who are your target customers, and how do you reach them?
Healthee targets five core target audiences: HR leaders, finance leaders, PEOs, TPAs, and insurance brokers. We reach them through our omnichannel marketing efforts that span our website, social media, email, conferences/events, SEO, ads, and more. We’ve also invested heavily in partnerships and co-marketing efforts to grow our presence across the board. For each target customer, Healthee’s sales team also tracks down leads and generates interest in our product through live demos.
– What is the market potential for your solution?
Healthee has huge potential to disrupt the healthcare navigation market — and is already making significant waves in the space. At its core, Healthee is a healthcare and benefits navigation solution built to support both employers and employees. We work with intermediaries such as insurance brokers, PEOs, and TPAs to broaden our reach in the market. Since our product supports both single enterprises and PEOs with thousands of clients, our solution is flexible, and there is no limit to who we can reach.
Business Challenges and Solutions
– What are the main challenges you have faced so far?
As a startup, Healthee has been faced with the challenges of growth and scale. We’ve expanded our customer and user base and created customized solutions for several large contracts that have required us to remain flexible and connected across the organization. Another challenge has been maintaining our company culture and communication as the team expands in our three offices.
– How have you overcome these challenges?
First, to solve the expanding customer and user base, Healthee has grown our platform capabilities and ensured greater data security. Second, to solve the issue of customized solutions with large clients, we’ve coordinated across departments to ensure alignment on contract requirements. Third, to solve the issue of maintaining our company culture amidst growth, our HR team and departmental leadership have collaborated on ways to conduct training and companywide meetings to demonstrate connectedness and increase belonging.
Current Status and Future Plans
– What is the current status of your?
Healthee is over three years old and has a developed product out in the market. We have an ever-growing user base and are generating revenue.
– What are your key milestones for the next 12 months?
Healthee is always enhancing our product and taking our offerings to the next level. Our key milestones for the next 12 months include major updates to our core product offerings and improved UX and UI for our customers. As a company, we are always growing and hiring new, great talent to contribute to our offices across the world.
– Do you have any upcoming product launches or major updates planned?
We are in the final stages of developing an enhanced version of our app, designed to revolutionize the way you manage and utilize your health benefits. Our updated app aims to transform your benefits navigation experience by making it as intuitive and engaging as shopping on an e-commerce platform. This means a user-friendly interface, personalized recommendations, and streamlined navigation and utilization that simplifies the often complex world of health benefits.
Goals for ITC Conference
– What are your primary objectives for attending the ITC conference?
Our primary objectives for attending the ITC conference are to boost brand awareness and forge strategic partnerships. We aim to increase the visibility of Healthee’s innovative health benefits solutions by showcasing our enhanced app, highlighting our transformation of the user experience. The ITC conference offers a platform to connect with key stakeholders in the insurance and technology sectors. We plan to demonstrate our app’s new features, emphasizing its consumer-centric approach and improved user engagement. Building relationships with potential partners, clients, and industry influencers is crucial for expanding our reach and services. Additionally, understanding industry trends and opportunities is vital for our continuous improvement. Achieving these goals will solidify Healthee’s position as a leader in the health benefits industry and pave the way for future growth.
– Are there specific partnerships or opportunities you are looking to explore?
Healthee is always looking for new partnerships, especially in the PEO, TPA, and broker industries. We’ve successfully partnered and integrated with some of the largest players in these spaces, and we are eager to continue nurturing these opportunities.
Team and Culture
– Can you introduce your founding team and their backgrounds?
Guy Benjamin, CEO
Guy Benjamin is an accomplished speaker and entrepreneur with a diverse background that blends military service, academic achievements, and business expertise. Born and raised in Israel, Guy spent 12 years as an F-16 Fighter Pilot in the Israeli Air Force. Alongside his military duties, he earned a BA in Information Technologies and Physics from Ben Gurion University. After leaving the Air Force, Guy attended the Yale School of Management, then joined McKinsey & Co. as an Associate Partner, focusing on digital and analytics transformations for tech companies. Motivated by a passion for improving healthcare, Guy co-founded Healthee, a company dedicated to transforming the healthcare experience in America and empowering people to take control of their health benefits.
Ben Nagar, Co-CEO
A father of two, Ben is married to Hadar and lives in Tel Aviv, Israel. Ben founded Healthee with the mission of improving people’s health and disrupting the insurance and healthcare industries.“I’m happiest when working with people, solving problems, creating solutions, and facing challenges. What I value most is honesty, resilience, and having a founder’s mindset.” Before founding Healthee, Ben served as co-owner and CEO of an Insurtech Company automating actuarial calculations for small businesses, successfully growing the company from five to forty-five employees before its acquisition. Prior to his entrepreneurial career, Ben served as a Heavy Lift helicopter pilot in the Israeli Air Force and was an indie-rock musician.
Dr. Elad Ofir, Chief Data Officer
Born and raised in Israel, Elad is married to Alina, and father of two boys, Yuval & Noam. After earning his MD from Bar Ilan University, Elad was selected for an Internship at the Plastic Surgery & National Burn Unit at Sheba Medical Center. During his medical studies, he founded his first company helping law firms in the medical malpractice domain save time and money by analyzing and processing relevant data through proprietary software. In addition to his medical work, Elad started a non-profit organization supporting youth from low socioeconomic communities with free-music lesions. In 2018, Elad founded Healthee while seeking a meaningful solution to common pain points plaguing the American healthcare system.
– How does your team’s expertise contribute to your success?
In 2023 and 2024, we made major changes to our organization and our processes in the pursuit of growth. We hired 20+ additional team members throughout the year, increasing our talent and bandwidth across all teams. We rebuilt our entire Makers organization, streamlining the team structure to maximize our ability to develop new products and expand upon our current features. With our new Makers structure, we launched eight new features, from online booking to live deductible trackers. We shifted the architecture of our software system from a monolithic server to multiple microservices to increase scalability, agility, fault isolation, and resilience. Our R&D team ran end-to-end tests in production hourly, and resolved over 400 bugs.
– What is the company culture like at your startup?
Our company is committed to taking measures to foster a “Healthee” culture of inclusion, equity, and diversity, where all employees are empowered to contribute their ideas, drive innovation, and thrive professionally.
- Regular internal surveys for feedback and improvement:
We conduct a biannual global engagement survey to gather feedback from every employee across our three sites, ensuring that all voices are heard. This feedback is crucial in identifying areas for improvement and fostering a culture of continuous innovation, collaboration, and growth. We measure employee satisfaction with respect to workloads, collaboration opportunities, career/growth opportunities, and relationships with team members and managers. By actively listening to our employees, we create an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and incorporated into decision-making processes, and issues are proactively addressed.
- Recognition of diverse and underrepresented backgrounds:
We celebrate and uplift the diversity of our workforce through various initiatives, such as Women’s Day, Pride Month, and BIPOC history months. We highlight their histories and invite employees who are members of these communities to share their unique perspectives. These efforts not only recognize the unique contributions of individuals from underrepresented groups, but also serve to foster a sense of belonging and inclusion within our organization.
- Inclusive hiring practices:
Our talent acquisition strategies are designed to attract and retain a diverse team with a range of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. We have implemented inclusive hiring practices to ensure that our recruitment processes are free from bias and barriers, allowing us to tap into a wider talent pool and build a more innovative workforce. We actively seek out candidates with diverse backgrounds who bring out-of-the-box critical thinking, collaborative spirit, and an inclusive work style.
Funding and Investment
– Have you secured any funding to date? If so, from whom?
$58 M. Healthee is a Series A startup. We completed a $32M Series A funding round in March 2024, co-led by Fin Capital, Glilot Capital Partners, and Group11. Before this round, Healthee completed Pre-Seed and Seed funding rounds in 2021.
– Are you currently seeking additional investment? If yes, how much and for what purpose?
Yes, we’re always intrigued to lead discussions with industry leaders and potential future investors to discuss growth opportunities and partnerships.
Industry Insights and Trends
– What are the biggest trends or changes you see happening in the insurtech industry?
AI is only growing in its societal prevalence and technical capabilities. As Healthee CEO, Guy Benjamin, often says, AI today is the worst it’ll ever be. In fact, the AI market in healthcare is growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 39%, reaching $148B by 2029. Healthee is actively participating in this growth and has built our entire platform with AI behind it.
We’re also seeing changes in how employers, brokers, PEOs, and TPAs want to improve the employee experience and increase benefits utilization. Wasted benefits-related spend and high-cost premiums have skyrocketed and will only continue to grow. Healthee is offering a solution helps these target audiences appeal to employees and give them meaningful insight into their benefits plans and empower them to use the health plans they are enrolled in — all while saving employers on lower cost premiums.
– How do you see the insurance landscape evolving in the next 5 years?
The insurance landscape is growing more complex, especially as the average human life span is growing longer and sections of the general population reach ages and situations that incur greater risk. Insurers and brokers will need to constantly evaluate their offerings and coverage, making it even more important to empower employees with up-to-date knowledge about their employer-provided benefits. Brokers will also face challenges when building benefits packages for employers and ensuring optimal coverage. By using platforms like Healthee, brokers and employers can learn more about their employees’ benefits utilization and common healthcare-related queries they enter into the Healthee app. Then, they can make informed plan renewal recommendations and decisions.
Unique Selling Proposition
– What is one thing you want potential customers or partners to remember about your company?
Healthee is leading the industry with our AI-powered benefits and healthcare navigation platform. By using AI to make sense of multiple, unstructured data sources, we can create a seamless UI for employees to simply query their benefits and understand what they’re covered for. Our use of AI extends to our personal health assistant, Zoe, who serves as the user’s conversational guide through their benefits journey in the Healthee app.
