Fred Turner and Curative have been on quite the journey since the entrepreneur founded the firm in 2020.
Originally set up to improve sepsis outcomes with a risk-sharing model for hospitals, it quickly pivoted to address the COVID-19 pandemic, scaling from seven to 7,000 employees in just 12 months and delivering 35 million COVID-19 tests and 2.5 million vaccines across the US.
Today’s Curative is all about building the next generation of large employer health insurance which is focused on preventative health and removing barriers to care.
In this interview, Fred explains how employers are reaching breaking point when it comes to paying for insurance, and how adopting a more preventative approach can drive better results and lead to a more affordable delivery of plans.
Key to that, Fred says, is finding partners who are able to grow and scale with Curative.
To learn more, including why Fred and Curative are so confident in their business model, tune in and watch the full interview with Fierce Healthcare’s Rebecca Willumson.
Rebecca Willumson:
Hi there. I'm Rebecca Willumson. I'm the publisher of Fierce Healthcare, and I'm here today with Fred Turner, Co-Founder and CEO of Curative. Fred, thanks for joining me.
Fred Turner:
Thanks for having me.
Rebecca Willumson:
So, before we begin, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and Curative?
Fred Turner:
Yeah. So, Curative is a new health plan in the employer space started here in Texas. We cover employers based in Texas, all Florida, but we do cover members nationwide, and we have a bit of a unique approach where our members get no copay, no deductible, as long as they complete a baseline visit within the first 120 days of the plan year.
Rebecca Willumson:
So tell me, where do you see the greatest opportunity in working with employers?
Fred Turner:
Yeah, we think employers have reached a breaking point with ever increasing plan costs every year, 20% increases, and ever-increasing deductibles and feeling like they're not actually providing benefits anymore. If you're giving your employees a plan with an $8,000 deductible that they can't afford to actually go see APCP or engage in care you really providing meaningful benefits. And so I think employees have gotten to the point where they're desperate for a new solution for something that actually enables their employees to get the care that they need and enables them to engage in preventative care.
Rebecca Willumson:
So tell me, what do you need from a partner to really make that relationship work?
Fred Turner:
Yeah, I think on the partner side, we really need somebody who can grow with us, and we are used to pretty rapid growth. So historically curative was one of the largest covid testing operations in the us. We grew from seven to 7,000 employees in the first year and did close to 10% of our US covid testing. So scaling up quickly is what we're all about. And on the health plan side, we're also taking that same approach of growing very rapidly. So for us, we look for partners who are going to be able to grow with us.
Rebecca Willumson:
Very good. So tell me what makes curatives offer different from the BUCAs who dominate in this space? What will enable you to succeed when so many other new entrants have failed?
Fred Turner:
Yeah, so the existing BUCA plans are really focused on kicking the can down the road on preventative care that ever-increasing deductibles do save a little bit of money in the first year. So when you put up deductibles, you get about a 12% saving in that first year. But when you look into where that's coming from, it's not coming from people price shopping or not getting care that isn't necessary. It comes from people avoiding any kind of preventative care. They don't go see their PCP, they don't get their colonoscopy, their mammogram, because they didn't really want to do that anyway. So you give them any financial excuse, any financial barrier, and they put that off and that saves money in the first year. But by the time you're into that second year, what could have been dealt with in a preventative setting in primary care is now becoming an ER visit or a hospital stay or specialty drug use.
And so by the second year, your costs are back at baseline. By the third year, your costs are 20% above where they would've been. So if you measure it over three years, you're actually spending 8% more than you would've spent because you're kicking the can down the road and paying for what should have been preventive care in a higher acuity setting later. So we're really trying to do that differently by investing in the member's preventive care early. The zero-plan design enables people to actually understand what it's going to cost them to get care so they can go engage in primary care, knowing it's going to cost them $0. They can have a baby knowing it's going to cost them $0 and heaven forbid if they need to get cancer care, they know it's going to cost them $0. So they can actually do that engagement. And that leads to a little bit of an increase in cost in the first year. But then we actually keep people healthy. So by the second and third year, we're saving money, keeping people out of the hospital, keeping them off unnecessary specialty drugs by actually making that upfront investment.
Rebecca Willumson:
Very good. Well, that is all the questions that I have. Thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.
Fred Turner:
Excellent. Thanks for having me.