Chris Olmanson, Beaming Health
1) Tell us about your background and how/why you started the company.
I worked at UnitedHealth Group for 4 years and saw how terrible navigating healthcare can be. I also saw how you can change someone’s life by helping them get the care they need. I want to work on problems that are challenging and impactful and healthcare checks both of these boxes in spades. I went to Stanford for business school with the goal of starting a company that addressed one of the biggest problems I had seen while at United, and Beaming is that company.
2) What are the key problems you are addressing and how you are delivering value to customers through software workflows?
The big problem we are addressing is families can’t find affordable care for their kids. Waiting lists for insurance-covered services such as speech, occupational, and physical therapy are oftentimes months, if not years, long. The underlying problem is not that there are too few providers; it’s that fewer than 30% take insurance. The reason for this is that insurance is too much of a headache for them to handle, and so they take what they can get with cash-pay even if they can’t fill a full caseload. We solve this problem by making it easy and profitable for therapists to take insurance. And we do it with software and AI. We’ve built our own practice management system/EHR that uses AI to reduce the time spent on insurance-related tasks and ensures they get paid every time.
3) What have you enjoyed or what do you look forward to about working with Tau Ventures?
Amit is the best. Last month, I sent him an email at 7pm asking to find time the following week to go over something. Instead, he called me 5 minutes later and we spent the next 45 minutes going over it then and there. Whenever we have needed his help, whether it’s getting investor intros, publicizing a job post on LinkedIn, helping us think through our strategy, or just being in our corner, he’s always shown up.
