Physician Entrepreneurship in GI with Joe Rubinsztain, MD

In this podcast episode, Joe Rubinsztain, MD, the CEO of ChronWell, discusses his path to becoming a doctorpreneur, the creation of gMed and more.

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• Intro :02
• Welcome to this episode of Gut Talk :22
• About Rubinsztain :39
• The interview 1:14
• Tell us about your background … where did you grow up and how did you get interested in medicine? 1:16
• What “aha moment” steered you into this nontraditional direction? 2:45
• Was that the genesis of gMed or did something precede gMed? 3:54
• Where did gMed occur in this whole awakening that you experienced? 4:27
• Was it a success immediately or was it a steep uphill climb? 6:03
• What were some of the main things that you learned from this journey? What were some of the durable themes that came out of that experience for you? 7:21
• Was the EMR market just as saturated when you were starting gMed, and you were scaling the company? How did you sell this into physicians' offices? 9:47
• Policy changes in health care can make or break a company … could you talk to us a little about the acquisition and leading up to that - how did it happen? 11:24
• There must’ve been the temptation to go in a whole bunch of different directions … How did you resist that temptation and how did you decide to choose GI and dermatology? 13:09
• Did you organically create those relationships or how did those come about? 15:44
• It you were starting and scaling gMed now how would things be different with these integrated delivery systems and private equity consolidation? 17:25
• Are the incentives aligned to make digital therapeutics an attractive option right now? 20:08
• Do you think the future for digital therapeutics and the types of services that ChronWell provides are going to be driven more by the fee-for-service architecture or do you think GI as a specialty is closer to more bundled payments and value-based approach? 22:45
• Could you tell us a little bit more about ChronWell, your transition from gMed to ChronWell and what you’re doing there now? 25:14
• Who are you selling these services to? Is this a service that’s being provided the GI physician, a health plan, a self-insured employer? 27:20
• Do you mind just telling our audience what you mean by the term ‘digital therapeutics’? 29:38
• Are you subject to regulatory standards? Do these digital therapeutics need to be FDA approved or is it more like the Wild West? 31:01
• As we transition to this accountable care/value-based system. Will there be the same level of profitability and interest on the part of equity in gastroenterology? 35:30
• It also sounds as if artificial intelligence and machine learning are going to play a big role in what you’re building 38:15
• Do you think the key thing there is the size of the data set or the quality of the data? 40:06
• Should there be a medical school pathway for physician data scientists that specifically peg their careers for this type of development pathway? 41:55
• What are the biggest misconceptions you think physicians, and more particularly GI physicians, have about the entrance of these early stage technology companies into health care? 43:49
• What advice would you have for a young physician or someone in medical school who’s got these crazy thoughts of a non-traditional career? 46:56
• Thank you, Joe 48:57
• Thanks for listening 49:29

Joe Rubinsztain, MD, is a physician entrepreneur and CEO/co-founder of ChronWell and founder of gMed.

We’d love to hear from you! Send your comments/questions to [e-mail]. Follow us on Twitter @HealioGastro @sameerkberry @umfoodoc

Disclosures: Berry and Chey report no relevant financial disclosures. Rubinsztain is the CEO and co-founder of ChronWell.