fee the University of Utah Health Plan is paying Iris for providing such services to its plan members.
Companies like Iris could be a way for health plans to add this benefit for their members, in the hope that such discussions could help prevent unnecessary and costly care. A lack of planing contributes to some $210 billion in unneeded care each year, Wardle says.
Wardle says there are about 10 million people in the U.S. that have serious chronic illnesses who “are in urgent need of advanced care planning and don’t have access.”
As the population ages, that number will only increase.
Right now, those patients and their families are often driven to seek out additional care in the heat of the moment when confronted with acute life-or-death situations. Wardle says with upfront information about their loved ones’ preferences, that care may not be requested.
End-of-life care is a growing focal point for healthcare startups. Another example is Boston-based startup Cake. Its app helps people designate a healthcare proxy and buy life insurance, as well as create an online handbook or posthumous preferences for loved ones, doctors, and lawyers to carry out.
Iris Plans, founded last year, has raised $1 million from a variety of institutional and angel investors including Better Ventures in Oakland, CA, Wardle says.
Iris co-founder Stephen Bekanich began the company after watching his grandparents suffer through chronic illness, according to an Austin Inno story earlier this year. Bekanich, formerly an ICU doctor, switched fields to palliative care and became the medical director of palliative care services for the University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics in 2005. He came to Austin to lead the palliative care program for the Seton Healthcare Family in 2012.
Wardle says that typically there has been an aversion by physicians to emphasize such care early on in a diagnosis. “It feels like you’re eliminating hope,” he says. “And it’s not something that physicians learn in medical school.”
