SANA SIMPLIFIES HEALTHCARE FOR SMALL BUSINESSES
Sana Gives Small Businesses a Leg Up on Healthcare Savings
America is home to some of the world’s best hospitals and research institutions, but navigating our healthcare system can be overwhelming, expensive, and time-consuming for many in need of care. Innovation and regulatory reform is needed to fully address these issues, and Sana Benefits is doing its part by helping patients, employers, and healthcare providers, starting with a better approach to small business insurance.
Over half of Americans rely on employer-based health insurance. Around 90% of large companies utilize self insurance, which allows employers to assume the financial risk for covering employees’ healthcare costs by setting aside a certain amount of funds each year rather than paying a premium to a traditional insurance carrier. This provides employers with more control over how premium dollars are allocated, and means employers don’t pay for what they don’t use. But for small businesses, which employ nearly half of U.S. employees, only about 21% self-insure because of restrictive state regulatory requirements and heavy administrative burdens, leaving them with expensive fully-funded plans that aren’t catered to their needs. Sana administers an end-to-end solution that allows small businesses to pursue plans that are more cost effective, flexible, and transparent than fully-insured models.
Sana Enters the Scene
Sana was co-founded by Will Young in 2017 to simplify and improve healthcare for small and medium sized businesses. Sana solves for the high fixed costs typically associated with starting a self-funded health insurance plan by providing businesses with level-funded insurance that allows them to enjoy the perks of a self-funded plan, but limits their liability with reinsurance for catastrophic cases.
Sana offers small businesses a suite of additional healthcare services like cutting-edge telehealth platforms and preventative care, allowing business owners to provide higher-quality coverage for employees often at a cost savings compared to traditional plans.
Introducing Sana Care: Your Own AI-Powered Medical Practice
Imagine a healthcare system where the front door is your family doctor. Sana’s new AI-enabled product, Sana Care, does just that, using AI to help general practitioners leverage their time and do less busy work, allowing members to simply text their doctor when there’s a problem. The doctor then quarterbacks the member through their care journey alongside a personalized care team–a collection of healthcare experts who can diagnose, treat, and manage chronic conditions. Members can communicate with their care team regularly and as they need to, sending photos and messages at their own convenience.
Since launching in January, Sana Care is now available to all adult members in Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and is rapidly expanding to other states. So far, 35,293 messages have been sent on the platform and patient feedback is glowing, with a 90+ net promoter score from current users.
“Sana Care’s turnaround time was extremely fast and all my questions were answered with a high level of competence and compassion by the care coordinator. One of the best experiences I’ve had in healthcare.”
— Sana Care user
Regulatory Reforms Open the Road for Sana’s Expansion
Until recent years, the regulatory environment in many states prevented small businesses from being able to self-insure, but thanks to the work of Sana and the support of the Trust team, Sana has been able to unlock reforms to open a pathway to licensing in nearly every state. Sana is currently available in eleven states: Texas, Illinois, Kentucky, Arizona, Oklahoma, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Alabama, Virginia, and Michigan.
Trust Ventures is proud to support Sana in their mission to provide affordable, quality employee healthcare to all Americans, and to continue to push for reforms that allow innovative healthcare solutions like Sana to thrive.
Interested in Sana? Visit their website to see if Sana could be right for your small business. For providers, you can contract quickly with Sana, and enjoy easy payments plus visibility to over 30K members in their growing provider directory.
About Trust Ventures
We’re a venture capital fund focused on removing barriers that keep innovators and entrepreneurs from bringing life-changing ideas to market that can transform some of the largest industries and solve massive social challenges. We help our portfolio companies address outdated and incumbent-driven regulatory barriers. Through our work we’ve helped our portfolio companies secure unprecedented regulatory clearances and change state and federal laws, unlocking access to their innovations for hundreds of millions of Americans.
Watch our video or visit our website to learn more.
