Linear #142: Last Day for Summit Tix, The Story of Hello Patient, 14 Psychology Backed Pricing Strategies
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The Story of Hello Patient
Imagine this: You've finally mustered the courage to see a doctor about that persistent cough. You Google a nearby clinic, find their number, and call—only to be greeted by an endless hold queue, followed by a harried receptionist who can barely verify your insurance, let alone answer basic questions about wait times or services. Three calls and an hour later, you give up. Sound familiar? We’ve all been there…
This isn't just a patient frustration story—it's a $450 billion market failure. Healthcare has an access problem, not a provider discovery problem. While practices spend thousands on patient acquisition, they're losing conversions at the most critical moment: that first phone call.
The brutal reality is that most outpatient healthcare groups are high-CAC, low-retention service businesses with virtually no technology supporting their patient funnel after top-of-funnel marketing.
Enter Hello Patient, the vertical AI startup that's aiming to fix healthcare's "front door" problem with conversational AI that “actually works”.
The Carbon Health Connection: When Domain Expertise Meets AI
Alex Cohen knows healthcare's patient engagement problem intimately—because he lived it every day for four years at Carbon Health. As the leader of consumer product and growth teams at the fast-growing primary care chain, Cohen was laser-focused on profitably acquiring and retaining patients while scaling the company to over $200 million in annual revenue and 80,000 patient visits per month.
But Cohen's path to healthcare wasn't linear. A repeat founder with a background spanning fintech (he previously co-founded Birch Finance, which was acquired) and product roles at companies including stints at Elon Musk's ventures, Cohen brought a unique consumer technology lens to healthcare's operational challenges.
"I'm a big believer that the right way to do this is through a managed services business. We're not building SaaS. I believe we can do this as a service-as-software model where what was traditionally a services business now has software margins because I don't have to go employ a whole bunch of people to do the services under the hood."
— Alex Cohen, CEO & Founder, Hello Patient
At Carbon Health, Cohen developed several hard-earned insights that became the foundation of Hello Patient.
First, "patient engagement" isn't just getting patients in the door—it's the entire end-to-end experience from initial inquiry to bill payment. Every touchpoint is a moment to delight or lose a patient. Second, patient engagement is inherently multimodal and highly dependent on specialty and demographics. Complex specialties serving older adults lean phone-heavy; simpler appointments with younger patients favor SMS. Finally, despite healthcare's unique complexities, basic consumer marketing principles still apply.
When Cohen decided to spin out Hello Patient, he brought over key team members from Carbon Health who understood the operational realities of scaling patient communications. This wasn't a team of AI researchers trying to crack healthcare—this was healthcare operators who knew exactly where AI could make the biggest impact.
Meet Mia: The AI Assistant That Actually Understands Healthcare
Hello Patient's core innovation is Mia, their AI-powered healthcare assistant that handles end-to-end patient conversations across voice, text, and chat. But Mia isn't another chatbot—she's a fully generative, conversational AI agent purpose-built for healthcare's unique workflows and compliance requirements.
What sets Hello Patient apart from the growing field of healthcare AI communication tools is their multi-agent architecture and truly conversational approach. While many competitors build "very deterministic products" that function like AI-powered phone trees, Hello Patient has been fully generative from day one. This means Mia can handle complex, multi-turn conversations that feel natural to patients while reliably executing healthcare-specific workflows.
Product Suite: Front Office to Growth Engine
Hello Patient's platform addresses three critical areas where healthcare practices struggle:
Front Office Automation: Mia answers 100% of calls, schedules appointments 24/7, verifies insurance upfront, and collects patient information to streamline intake and reduce no-shows. This isn't just about answering phones—it's about converting every inbound lead into a scheduled patient.
Back Office Efficiency: The platform automates revenue cycle management tasks, including bill pay assistance and patient collection calls. Mia also handles no-show follow-ups to reschedule visits and close care gaps, turning administrative burden into patient retention opportunities.
Practice Growth: Beyond maintaining existing patient relationships, Hello Patient enables proactive growth through instant responses to patient inquiries, lead conversion optimization, and targeted recall campaigns for lapsed patients.
Explosive Growth: From Hundreds to Thousands of Daily Conversations
The numbers tell a compelling growth story. When Hello Patient emerged from stealth in October 2024 with their $6.3 million seed round, they were handling hundreds of conversations per day. Less than a year later, they're powering 10,000 to 20,000 provider-patient conversations daily—a 50x increase that reflects the acute market need for their solution.
This growth isn't just about volume—it's about impact. Hello Patient's customers are seeing transformational results:
100% Answer rate across calls, texts, and chat—25% higher than most front desks
18% More appointments booked—an average of 3 additional appointments per location per day
95% Reduction in patient wait times, leading to higher NPS and better reviews
Go-to-Market Strategy: Depth Over Breadth
Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, Hello Patient has focused on going deep in specific healthcare verticals where their impact is most pronounced. Their primary targets include:
Urgent Care: High-volume, time-sensitive patient interactions where immediate response capability drives significant competitive advantage
ENT and Allergy: Specialties with complex scheduling needs and frequent follow-up requirements
Primary Care: The foundation of healthcare where patient relationships are built and maintained over time
Expanding Specialties: Dermatology, orthopedics, med spas, and veterinary clinics
This vertical focus allows Hello Patient to develop deep domain expertise in each specialty's unique workflows, patient communication patterns, and integration requirements. As Cohen notes, "It's quite tremendously hard to get into healthcare. Just given the amount of tribal knowledge and workflow experience that you need to get, even for an ENT practice, live, it just has to be a part of your DNA."
Competitive Moats: Why Healthcare AI Is Hard
The healthcare AI communication space is heating up rapidly. Competitors like Assort Health (which raised $50 million at a $750 million valuation) and EliseAI (which secured $250 million from a16z) are chasing similar opportunities. The market has seen significant validation with vertical winners capturing over $1 billion in combined funding in 2025 alone. So what gives Hello Patient sustainable competitive advantages?
Healthcare DNA: Unlike AI companies trying to enter healthcare, Hello Patient was built by healthcare operators who understand the nuances of medical practice workflows, compliance requirements, and patient expectations.
True Conversational AI: While competitors often build sophisticated phone trees that use AI for understanding, Hello Patient's fully generative approach enables natural, multi-turn conversations that can handle complex scenarios.
Multi-Modal Excellence: Hello Patient is "still one of the only few that's doing phone calling, texting and chatbot across both inbound and outbound use cases," according to Cohen.
Integration Depth: The platform seamlessly integrates with existing EHR and CRM systems, meeting practices where they are rather than requiring wholesale system changes.
"Hello Patient's AI assistants have transformed how we think about patient access. We're not just answering more calls, we're creating a fundamentally better experience for patients who need care now. Instant, accurate answers about insurance, wait times, and services means more patients get the care they need, when they need it."
— CEO, 96-location urgent care practice
The Technology Stack: Purpose-Built for Healthcare
Hello Patient doesn't build foundational AI models from scratch. Instead, they use existing LLMs and voice AI software, then fine-tune everything specifically for healthcare workflows and front-end administrative tasks.
Key technical differentiators include:
HIPAA Compliance: Built with healthcare's strict privacy and security standards from day one
EHR Integration: Deep connections with major electronic health record systems
Multi-Agent Architecture: Advanced system design that enables complex, reliable workflows
Customizable Voices: Multiple language support and voice options to match practice preferences
Customer Success: The Numbers Don't Lie
The early customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with practices reporting transformational improvements in both operational efficiency and patient satisfaction. One customer noted that Hello Patient was "the obvious choice" after evaluating over 100 vendors in the space.
"We have a million third party partners out there, and nobody's ever played back to us 'this is your onboarding flow and the events that fire'. You guys truly get it, and it's very impressive. Thank you for getting deep, deep, deep in the weeds."
— Co-founder & Head of Growth, Telehealth therapy platform in 26 states
Vision for the Future: Reimagining Healthcare Operations
Hello Patient's $22.5 million Series A, led by Scale Venture Partners with participation from 8VC, Bling Capital, Max Ventures, Remus Capital, and FirstLook Partners, positions the company to execute on an ambitious vision for healthcare transformation.
The funding will fuel several key initiatives:
Team Expansion: Scaling engineering, implementation, and customer success teams to handle growing demand
Product Development: Expanding AI capabilities and adding new features based on customer feedback
Market Expansion: Entering new healthcare verticals and geographic markets
Partnership Development: Deeper integrations with healthcare technology ecosystems
Jeremy Kaufmann, partner at Scale Venture Partners, emphasized the company's category-defining potential: "Hello Patient is tackling a real operational bottleneck in healthcare by addressing the communication challenges between patients and providers. Hello Patient stands out as the category-defining patient engagement platform, with an experienced team and early customer traction that prove AI can fix the access gap in healthcare."
What's Next: Scaling the Healthcare AI Revolution
One of the challenges Hello Patient will have is on the integration front into these companies systems of record. They will have to eventually choose whether or not to swallow the frog and become a system of record or continue to rely on integrating into those systems. But if this is simply just a wedge product, it is truly a special one.
The healthcare communication crisis that has frustrated patients and stressed healthcare workers for years finally has what seems like a solid solution. And Hello Patient is just getting started.
"We're solving that by automating patient communications and improving access for patients while reducing the burden on staff. These things are still so early that it's all very much a partnership, and it's a 'crawl, walk, run' approach with everyone."
— Alex Cohen, CEO & Founder, Hello Patient
Today Is The Final Day To Get Vertical Software Summit Tickets!
5 years ago there wasn’t a Vertical Software Email Newsletter.
So we created Linear — what your reading now :-).
Upon reflection over the past few months, I came to the conclusion it was time to also create a flagship event for vertical software founders, operators, and investors. Why? Well, because, there wasn’t one…
We all deserve ~2 days a year to share notes, get inspired, and learn from each other to grow our companies into the leaders of the industries that we serve.
A lot of the top folks in vertical software have graciously accepted invites to come to this and share their wisdom — Ilir Sela (Founder & CEO of Slice), Kyle Norton (CRO of Owner.com), Alex Jekowsky (Founder & CEO of Cents), Jeremy Yamaguchi (Founder & CEO of Cabana), and a bunch of other killer vSaaS investors and acquirers.
Check out the full schedule at the link below.
I hope to see you in Miami in October for what will be an incredible event for the vertical software community.
14 Psychology Backed Pricing Strategies
#1. Decoy Pricing
Include a very expensive pricing tier that MAKES NO SENSE. The tier below should have ALMOST all of the same capabilities. When a prospect sees it, their mind will immediately go to the tier below. What they don't realize is you pushed them to do just that!
#2. Reframe the cost
If Slack asked you to pay $120 per month, you wouldn't. But it asks you to pay $12 per employee, per month. In your head '$12/person' makes it much more digestable. You're ok with that. It's reasonable. Cheap, actually. That thought process is by design!
#3. Product Bundles
If you buy just a burger you pay $1, but if you buy a meal you end up paying just a tad bit more. It increases the average order price for the company & gives you a false sense of a 'win'. In reality, the business won, but you felt like you got a deal!
#4. Freemium
When you give your users basic features of their products for free, you get them in the door, and you warm them up. Typically, you lock them in somehow (data, users, usage rate, etc.) and force an upgrade to a paid package. Eliminates up-front friction.
#5. Dynamic Pricing
Hotels, airlines, cabs, apartment rentals, etc. all have different prices for the same services, on different occasions. "We can't charge one person more than another." is a great myth. Supply and demand, baby.
#6. Localized Pricing
If you're selling your product in the U.S. the price should be in US dollars. If you're selling your product, it should be in Euros. Always show the price in the local currency or you'll lose customers you should have earned.
In countries with a lot of competition, lowering your price can create appeal. In other countries, being a premium product will yield more fruit. Price based on cultural norms.
#7. Price Per Unit
You want an AirBnB for 7 nights. In the app, bookings show up as per-night charges instead of the aggregate price. This way, the price appears small & affordable. By the time you're checking out, you're committed. Too late to change it up now...
#8. Framing Effect
Instead of "Buy 2 units & get 2 units free" use "If you buy 2 units, you'll get a 50% discount". Users worry about losing something MORE than they feel about happy about gaining something ADDITIONAL. This will grow your conversion rates.
#9. Bandwagon Effect
Adding 'Most Popular" to a plan helps visitors avoid falling into a paradox of choice. If you tell them a lot of people are buying something, they immediately think, "If it's right for all those people, it will surely be right for me."
#10. Buy Now Pay Later
Allow your customers to purchase a product & pay in installments. It helps them avoid an up-front financial dent with high-priced products. This strategy MADE Peleton.
#11. Create Urgency
Compel your users to make a decision fast. 📍 Give them a limited-time offer 📍 Tell them that only the last few units are left in stock Airlines do this VERY WELL. How many times have you heard, "We have to book this now, the seats are almost all taken."
#12. Scratch out the high price
Scratch an initial high price & then reduce it with a discount. This displays a "high perceived value" for the users & also creates an urgency factor again. "Wow! It's X% off, but only for right now."
#13. Monthly versus Yearly Pricing
Upsell your users with a generous offer to pay annually, instead of monthly. This makes THE BIGGEST difference when it comes to cash flow and runway. It also creates lock-in.
#14. Performance Based
You can unlock a lot high price if you do it tied to performance. Folks are often scared to do this, but some blend of performance + base recurring fee that covers your costs is a really strong strategy in a lot of cases..
A few more suggestions to think about:
Your price should never be static
It should be a CONSTANT iteration
You should ALMOST NEVER price the same for every person
No price is right or wrong, so much more goes into it
Experiment, experiment, experiment.
Have a product or service that would be great for our audience of vertical SaaS founders/operators/investors? Reply to this email or shoot us a note at ls@lukesophinos.com