Forward brings an entirely new perspective to primary care, changing the way people think about and manage their health. Today, we discuss our care model and philosophy, and why we built Forward to stand completely independent of traditional insurance — for you.
The most common questions that we hear at Forward center around insurance. Do we take insurance? Do we count as insurance? Are we insurance?
Given the current — and oftentimes confusing — healthcare system, it’s hardly surprising. But at Forward, we built our model from scratch to stand entirely independent from insurance for a reason, and it all comes down to incentives.
When we built Forward, we built it as a product for actual people — not insurance companies.
More than 85% of U.S. medical providers operate under a fee-for-service model, meaning they’re paid for every blood test, procedure, or exam they provide you — regardless of whether or not these services provide value. This model incentivizes doctors, hospitals, and manufacturers to focus on generating billing codes for as many patients as possible, rather than giving people the tools to stay as healthy as possible, as long as possible. In some cases, this stretches even further, leading to unnecessary testing and treatments prescribed solely to boost provider profit. The system sets physicians up for failure by equating doing more to doing better — rather than rewarding physicians for what truly matters: the quality of their care and actions.
And the inadequacies show, as the US consistently ranks at or near the bottom in measures of healthcare quality between industrialized nations. And as healthcare costs for individuals rise year over year, so do insurance company profits; in the first three months of 2017 alone, the 5 largest for-profit insurance agencies cumulatively collected $4.5 billion in net earnings.
When we built Forward, we built it as a product for actual people — not insurance companies. We built it as a health membership instead of a fee-for-service business, allowing us to be proactive and preventative about our members’ health. We built our tools and technology to put your data back in your hands, and focused on accessibility to turn your health from a hassle to a convenience.
Each Forward membership includes:
- Unlimited access to your primary care doctor
- Genetic assessment & real-time blood testing to determine health risks
- Take-home wearables to discover patterns & track progress
- Private coaching for health & wellness goals
- Immediate response to your questions, anytime/anywhere
We put our members first in everything we do and every choice we make. It’s just another way we’re changing primary care — from how it’s always been done to how it should be done.
Are you ready to get started? Become a Member
