Eighteen months ago, consumers scrambled to find healthcare providers who could test and vaccinate against COVID-19, and health practices had to make the backend shift to offer appointments based on supply to meet consumer demand.
To help meet demand, health tech company Solv partnered with the CDC’s VaccineFinder.org to create a large, high-volume capacity system to test and vaccinate consumers.
The company is using the same technology to enable consumers to book 25 of the most common lab services such as blood tests, drug tests and diabetes screening. The technology will expand in the coming months, based on consumer demand and search volume.
"The pandemic served as a forcing function for providers to unlock supply (COVID tests, vaccines) and offer bookable appointments to meet patient demand. As a result, consumers now expect to be able to manage and book all of their healthcare needs quickly and accessibly, including diagnostic testing, more than ever before," Heather Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of Solv, told Fierce Healthcare.
While COVID-19 testing has dominated testing capacity for the past 20 months, other testing needs have not abated. Lab tests used to require physician orders, whether they were collected at a doctor’s office or at an offsite draw station. Solv’s Test Finder helps consumers find providers who offer these services as quickly and easily as they can book a COVID test, according to the company.
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Solv's Test Finder helps consumers find and book 25 everyday lab tests. In one easy-to-use end-to-end experience, consumers can now search, book, and interpret results all from the Solv app or website, according to Fernandez, who was recently recognized as one of Fierce Healthcare's Women of Influence in 2021.
The company also provides educational content and FAQs for each test type to help consumers better understand what each test is for, how to navigate the booking process and how to interpret test results.
Solv, a provider of same-day and next-day appointment software, is banking on a future healthcare system where digital-first patients want more on-demand, virtual experience. The San Francisco-based company sells software to healthcare providers to help them build out digital capabilities like online scheduling, paperless registration, AI-driven queuing and automatic reputation management. Solv also offers an app for consumers to find care and schedule appointments, including telehealth visits.
"Working with Solv has been a total game-changer when it comes to expanding testing access and exceeding patient expectations of what a truly accessible and on-demand healthcare experience can look like,” said Michael Alahverdian, vice president of sales at Empire City Labs in a statement “We’re excited to continue the partnership and see this test finder as yet another way to support our existing patients today while establishing new relationships in the long term.”
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a shift in the patient-provider dynamic, Fernandez said. "As a part of that, Americans have increasingly taken control of their healthcare, using technology as a means to greater access and more convenient, reliable care," she said.
Solv wants to make that "role-reversal" in healthcare a permanent fixture, rather than a fleeting pandemic trend. "Whether that’s scheduling a same-day appointment with just a few taps of their phone, seeing a doctor from the comfort of their couch via telemedicine, knowing exactly how much they will pay for a healthcare appointment as they book it, or filling out digital pre-appointment paperwork to reduce in-office wait-time," Fernandez said.
The company compares itself to other industry marketplaces that connect drivers and passengers in transportation, buyers and sellers in real estate, and restaurants and diners in food. Solv connects patients and providers in healthcare, according to company executives.
Solv, launched in 2016, has seen rapid growth as the pandemic accelerated healthcare's shift to digital. Today, 1 in 12 Americans have used Solv to schedule care and 100 million Americans live within five miles of a bookable Solv appointment, according to the company.
The startup facilitated more than 12 million COVID tests since March 2020. Solv has seen strong growth in telehealth bookings as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company booked 9,000 telemedicine appointments prior to March 2020 and that jumped to more than 1.5 million telemedicine bookings in the last 18 months.
Since January 2021, Solv has seen a 115% increase in user accounts and more than a 60% increase in Solv provider locations, just in the last 10 months.
The company's revenue has grown by 4x since January 2020, it reported.
Digital health investors also are banking on Solv's ongoing growth. The company has picked up $95.1 million in venture capital funding, with the most recent round of $45 million closed in early September.
"The pandemic didn’t change our roadmap; it accelerated it," Fernandez said. "Prior to COVID, healthcare was one of the few industries where consumers didn’t have access to an on-demand, digital experience. That’s no longer the case. The pandemic forced providers to finally adopt technology that enabled digital scheduling, chat and telemedicine; consumers love this improved access and increasingly expect it."