Making Lab Testing Affordable: Zach Aten’s Mission Behind Grassroots Labs

#005 In this special episode of the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast, Zach Aten, CEO of Grassroots Labs, shares his journey of creating an online marketplace for affordable lab testing. Zach explains how Grassroots Labs helps tens of thousands of people access crucial health diagnostics at a fraction of the cost, even for those with insurance.

From tackling the challenges of high healthcare costs to providing transparency in pricing, this episode dives into the heart of a mission to make healthcare more accessible for everyone.

Don’t miss Zach’s insights on entrepreneurship, sustainability in business, and how Grassroots Labs is shaping the future of health diagnostics.

About Zach Aten
Zach has been working in the health care technology sector for over 8 years and is passionate about solving cost and access problems in health care. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelors of Science in Economics and a minor in German. He is a full-stack software developer and currently lives in Peachtree City, GA with his wife Stephanie and their two children.

About Grassroots Labs
Grassroots Labs is an online marketplace that makes lab testing more affordable and accessible for individuals across the U.S. By offering transparent pricing and easy access to lab tests, it helps people save 30-70% compared to traditional lab fees, even for those with insurance. The platform empowers users to take control of their health by providing the diagnostics they need without the financial burden. With convenient, local testing centers and a seamless process for purchasing tests, Grassroots Labs is transforming the way people access essential lab testing services.

Contact the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast

• Email us at podcast@grassrootslabs.com

Special Thanks to:

• Seth Aten who produces the podcast.
• Grassroots Labs for sponsoring the show.

Review us on Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen. 

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Transcript

Zach: [00:00:00] Hey everyone, and welcome back to the HealthCare Wayfinders podcast, where we are routing you to more accessible and cost-effective health care. 

Today's episode is a little different, and one I'm particularly excited to share. Instead of me interviewing a guest, I'm in the hot seat. My good friend Chris Nedza turned the tables and interviewed me about our journey behind grassroots labs and the mission that drives us. How we're helping to make lab testing more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans. 

We dive into the what and the why of grassroots labs, exploring how our marketplace works and the passion that fuels us. We also touch on some of the biggest challenges in healthcare access, the importance of affordability, and the role of sustainable business practice in driving real change in healthcare. 

Whether you're a healthcare consumer navigating our complex healthcare system, an entrepreneur, or a healthcare professional, this conversation has something for you. 

So let's get started. Here's my conversation with Chris about Grassroots Labs and our mission to [00:01:00] make healthcare diagnostics affordable and accessible for all. 

Chris: Zach Aten. How are you a CEO of Grassroots Labs? I am thrilled to spend a little bit of time with you. I love your journey. I love your story. And we're going to dig into this a little bit. So do me a favor before we get into the why let's get into the, what does grassroots labs provide, and then we're going to get into this story. 

Cause it's an amazing story. 

Zach: Yeah, thanks, Chris. So Grassroots Labs is an online marketplace that helps individuals across the U. S. access affordable lab testing that they need when visiting the doctor or managing their health. it's basically like a kind of like a GoodRX and amazon where you can get on and see the lab tests that you need. 

, like the, either your doctor has ordered or, that you need for some other reason in managing your health. And you can see information and education about those lab tests. You can see pricing, transparent pricing before you buy, you can purchase those tests. Conveniently on your phone or your computer, and then you can go have those tests performed at a convenient local [00:02:00] testing center to you. 

So we make the whole process of getting the health diagnostics that you need in order to have the best health care experience possible. And we do that at , an incredible discount to what people get in the marketplace. 

Chris: okay. So I've been to the doctor and they've said, you need to get your blood tests. So they'll send me to a lab and I get the blood tests and that's it. What's the difference? 

Zach: So the difference with us is that you don't know what those labs are going to cost you. And oftentimes you're not going to find out for weeks or months afterwards, but I can almost guarantee you that it's going to be a lot. We oftentimes the average savings that we can provide for lab tests for folks is anywhere between 30 and 70 percent off of what they pay, even if you have insurance, right? 

And so our sort of like ideal customer is going to be the 150 million Americans who are cash paying for their health care. Even if they have [00:03:00] insurance, they're probably on a high deductible health care plan, right? Or if they don't have insurance or if they're under insured we help, lower the costs of getting that testing done so that they can get the care that they need when they need it without putting off healthcare because of the high cost.  

Chris: So how does it work? Does it same process? Do I go to some back, dark alley lab or am I going to the same kind of lab facilities? Yeah. 

Zach: Yeah, you're going to The same lab or there's two big labs, clinical labs in the United States, and we work with the biggest one, and they have over 2200 testing centers across the United States, and what you do is when your doctor tells you what labs you need, You get on our website, you put those labs in your cart, you see exactly what the price is going to be. 

You get to make a decision. I always tell people, go look at what you paid before. And the price check alone probably is going to convince you to use us because it's just going to save you so much money.  

Chris: I know a little bit about the lab tests because I have a couple of kids who are [00:04:00] diabetics, unfortunately. So we have to go get, it's a chronic disease and we have to get lab tests all the time. It seems to me like that would be a very like that would be the target market chronic disease. 

People have to get, this stuff all the time.  

Zach: Yep. So people managing chronic diseases people doing different types of hormone therapy or you don't feel good and the doctor's just trying to figure out what's going on. They'll oftentimes do a big like shotgun panel. Or if you're being treated, for , just any kind of chronic disease where, the doctor needs to know what's going on in your body in order to appropriately treat you we're a great solution for that. 

Chris: This might be a side, rabbit hole, but do I need a doctor's prescription to go get the test or can I, if I don't feel good, can I just go and then take the test to the doctor or do I have to wait for the doctor? 

Zach: So we actually provide a lab order through our site. So what people do is they take their lab order from their doctor when they get on our site just so that they know what to order. But then when they actually go to [00:05:00] the testing center, they use an order that's been written by a physician oversight group that we work with who writes that order. 

Chris: Okay. So now this kind of segways into, okay, great service. I get it. Like a lot of people, as you're talking, I'm thinking there's probably a bunch of people that don't get the tests that they need. And I'm specifically thinking about diabetics, I apologize for thinking about that, but I know that type ones and type twos and a lot of type twos just don't go get the testing because they don't, they just don't know much about the disease. 

They may not feel bad or it's expensive. Why did you start this? 

Zach: Yeah, that's exactly actually why we started the company. When I got out of college, I started working at a nonprofit health care clinic here in Atlanta, Georgia, and it was a medical and dental clinic and they provided primary care medical services. particularly for those who are uninsured in the community. 

 And so we would have people who were [00:06:00] being treated for many different chronic diseases like diabetes, like high blood pressure, thyroid issues, you name it. And a recurring problem that we saw is that people would skip appointments. With the provider and people who were managing chronic conditions, and we wouldn't see them for, a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then they'd come back in and you talk to them and be like, Hey, what happened? 

How's your diabetes or how's your high blood pressure going? Because you know that they're out of medication, right? And they, a consistent story would be, I just didn't have the money. Yeah. To get the tests to come in for the appointment. And the sad thing is, that what would happen is, that their chronic condition they were managing would get out of whack and they'd wind up having to go to urgent care or even sometimes even the ER. 

 Which costs so much more money in order to treat them in those scenarios. And, that [00:07:00] just frustrated the Dickens out of me, to put it in a nice way.  

Chris: It's a heartbreaker, 

Zach: Yeah, yeah. It's like just because they didn't have the diagnostics. And so at that time I was doing some entrepreneurship classes at Emory University and at Georgia Tech. 

I started going to this this great little place called ATDC, the Advanced Technology Development Center, which you're very familiar with because you are a part of that. That's how we know each other. Yeah. But basically ATDC is an incubator that's based in Atlanta, Georgia at Georgia Tech, and it's one of the oldest incubators in the U. 

S. and they provide some amazing education that helps folks who are interested in starting a technology business helping them start those and grow those and honestly decide if it's worth starting, right? So I was taking classes around customer discovery, making sure that the problem that we were wanting to solve [00:08:00] was an actual problem that people would pay money for, right? 

Market research to know, like, how many customers, possible customers are out there. Because, you can have a great idea, but it's not a business unless you have customers who find value in what you're doing and will pay you money for it. We were going through those classes and eventually became a portfolio company at ATDC. 

And yeah, that's where sort of the journey started. It was, hey, let's build something that, people can access to get low cost, affordable lab testing.  So that they never have to miss an appointment with their doctor. They never have to put off going to get the health care that they need or, cut their pills in half in order to make it to, the next appointment, I don't want anybody to ever have to, go through that. 

And so, healthcare is a really big space and there's a lot of problems. But we just decided, Hey, we want to focus on this one area and that is helping making these [00:09:00] health diagnostics, these lab tests more affordable and accessible for folks. So that's kind of the story. 

Chris: Yeah. I love that story, you know, but as you're talking, I'm listening to you talk about, will people pay for it, we make money and oftentimes people associate. Making money as the greedy corporate, you know, organization, but your heart, well, I don't know, like I get what you guys do and I love it and it's really out of your heart to serve. 

If you don't have a profit, you can't build a company. I mean, let's face it, you know, you need to make some money and you're saving people a ton of money. Was there a personal experience that you saw or that witness that caused you to say look it I really my heart is to help people We have to build a healthy organization that makes a profit so we can have the right kind of technology and all that because Tech's not cheap. 

Was there an experience that led you to this? 

Zach: Yeah, totally. It was a big one for me, because I feel exactly what you were saying. One of the reasons that lab tests are so expensive is because [00:10:00] they are revenue generator for different types of health care organizations. Now I understand that. 

I understand, there's different business models out there in healthcare. But because of our experience working in the nonprofit world and serving folks who are uninsured, it just really, drove a value into me and it's become a value of our company, which is, Hey, we're always going to be unashamedly for the patient in health care. 

Right? I understand, hospitals have to run a certain way. Insurance companies have to run a certain way. And, I have no idea how to do those things. So God bless those folks. But because the work that we were doing, we were so up close with individual patients, it was like, Hey, whatever we're going to do, we have to do it for these people first. 

And we have to keep them first. Now, back to what you were saying. One of the things I learned at ATDC was You know, my dad has a funny saying. He's like, there's no mission without margin. Right? And so what that means is, is that if we really [00:11:00] wanted to see this vision of providing affordable lab testing at scale for people across the US, it's something that has to be sustainable. 

And it's something that has to be scalable. And that takes like good business practices. Now, you can still be a profitable business, right? But not be charging people, the same rates that are in the market, we're able to have a healthy business, but still offer testing to our customers, like I said, anywhere from 30 to 70 percent off what they would pay elsewhere. 

There's ways to do it. If your value is first and foremost, we're unashamedly for patients in the healthcare system. We're unashamedly for our customers first and honestly, figuring out a business model that would allow us to provide that service and provide it more and more because when we originally started, I priced us In a way where, I really wasn't charging enough for the labs, and it was because I wanted to make them as [00:12:00] cheap as possible. And, what we had to do is we wound up working with a team of MBA students from Emory a couple of years ago to help us do, hey, what's a sustainable Price that we could charge where we could still be, you know, one of the most affordable options in the market for folks because I still want to be driving that value to them. 

But then also, that we would be generating enough revenue to, be a sustainable business that could be here for those people more than just six months. I want to be able to be here in 5, 10, 20 years so that we don't just disappear. And in order to do that, you've got to be smart. 

You've got to be scalable and sustainable. You have to be profitable. But you can still, you can be profitable and you can still have a mission and a reason for why you're doing what you're doing to help people. And so I love that about us.  

Chris: and on the other side of it is you've got to run Yeah smart, but you've got to run lean Your decisions has to have to be wise [00:13:00] decisions. You can't have bloat disciplined. and I see all of that in you and your organization. Tell me like, let's switch gears just a little bit. 

What do you see as some of the biggest barriers to affordable healthcare access? Cause that's really one of your big missions is like, Hey, let's get in there. But so what, what are some of the barriers? Can you touch on that at all? Or am I throwing you a curve ball? 

Zach: No, yeah, you're great. I think in our experience, the biggest one often is affordability and cost, right? there's more people, I think, than ever who have health insurance now, but they're paying premiums. They're paying co pays, they're paying deductibles you know, more and more of the cost of healthcare is being shifted to the patients. 

And so, what winds up happening is that even when people have insurance they just don't go and get healthcare, right? They don't go to the doctor until something's like really wrong. When it's not affordable for folks, then people aren't going to do it. And so, [00:14:00] I, I think oftentimes the biggest factor is affordability. 

And, we haven't designed our healthcare system to be affordable. There's a lot of different competing. What's the word I'm looking for? 

Chris: think you're saying there's a lot of fingers in the pie. 

Zach: a lot of fingers in the pie. And. 

And it's a complex system. So I don't want to try to like generalize it down to, there's some easy solution to this, but it's got to be affordable for people if they're going to actually use it. Accessibility can also be geographic. So if you're not in a city or you're not around, a big hospital system, where it's easily accessible that can be difficult if you're somehow you've got mobility issues where you're not able to, it's not easy to go to get the healthcare that you need. 

My wife, Stephanie is a a nurse practitioner who treats diabetes patients and, she's got lots of patients who. It's a full day endeavor just to come to see her because of, just their mobility [00:15:00] issues or other health issues that they're dealing with. And figuring out ways to make things more accessible. For folks, I think is such a big deal, specifically around mobility. I know there's another company that we're both familiar called MedTrans Go, and they help coordinate rides for folks who, don't have a way to get to the doctor or who need more time getting there. 

You know, there's people out here innovating in this space, trying to make it better. You know, telemedicine obviously is going to be one of your biggest. Transformations in the last, definitely four years since COVID, but they had telemedicine before that, where, you can get on the phone with a doctor, a video call or something and get treated for a lot of acute issues and even some chronic conditions and that's that's allowed healthcare to improve. 

more people to access health care in a, in a easier way, more cost effective way. 

Chris: So speaking of telemedicine, I love that. You know, I mean, it's great. It makes people can from remote areas, get good healthcare, access to good [00:16:00] healthcare. What kind of limits do you see to that? 

Zach: Yeah. I mean, limitations are, at the end of the day for a lot of things, the doctor's got to get their hands on you or, their eyes. I think, obviously, I don't think there's ever going to be a time where we, we're not going to the doctor for or a health care provider for certain things. 

But I do think that, telemedicine is able to eliminate a lot of, Baseline stuff or acute issues that people then don't have to spend the time or the money to go to an office or an urgent care or even the ER that they could get addressed, just over the phone or over there iPad or something like that. 

So. 

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Let me, I kind of want to switch gears a little bit. You've talked about it, but I was wondering. Okay. In your experience, is there a cost differential for marginalized communities? Are they paying more because they don't have access to insurance? Or do you have I'm wondering, is that a thing or not? 

Zach: Yeah, 

Chris: have data on that, I don't  

Zach: yeah.  

I would say I don't [00:17:00] have any, I don't have any data on that myself. what we hear is the stories from our customers, which are everything is super expensive and we don't know how to navigate this what can be a crazy, journey through different healthcare providers, depending on what types of health conditions you're managing. 

I think that I can just say, I think everything's getting more expensive. Not to mention just with the huge amounts of inflation that we've had in the past few years. everything from the cost of college for doctors to get trained to all this stuff has gone up and it just drives costs up in the system. 

I, I don't have a lot of hard data on that. I would say like off the top of my head, but  

Chris: Well, I mean, customer, customer insights and customer  

Zach: yeah, 

yeah. I mean, you know what we hear, I can't tell you how many times we hear somebody who's like, man, I spent a thousand dollars on these tests, three months ago and now I'm spending, 120 it's not always that big of a difference, but labs Can cost [00:18:00] very different depending on where you go, when you go and whether you're with insurance or you're paying cash pay or something like that. 

So it's just a lot for people to navigate, right? They don't know what the right answers are or what they should do. You know, This gets more into just how difficult the whole system is, but. Getting back to a sustainable business is focused on solving one problem or a couple of problems and doing it really well for folks and eventually we may branch out into, trying to solve some other parts of the health care problem that's out there as far as people accessing it. 

But, You know, the whole, how do you eat an elephant takes small bites, I think is  

is really, 

really important here where we're cued into, we're going to make lab testing as affordable and accessible for folks as possible so that they don't have to worry about, getting the health diagnostics they need in order to see their doctor. 

Chris: Well, I love that. do, I don't want to step into a danger zone, but as you're talking I'm thinking about government policy. 

Zach: Yeah. 

Chris: And there's this, [00:19:00] obviously this huge debate, which is give the healthcare away for free have universal health coverage and stuff like that. 

And, the one side of me is yeah, that makes total sense. Let's do it. The practical side of me says that as soon as you give it away for free, the cost keeps going up anyway, and somebody is going to pay for it, make tuition for free and it's just the universities just keep rising the cost and building bloat into Administrations and stuff like that. 

I don't know. Do you have any comment about that? I don't want to get into the danger zone because you do work with You know in this sector and I know where your heart is, but any comments that you want to touch in on policy  

Zach: oftentimes, Extremes are never good. All right, we find in life where I wind up falling on this spectrum is probably somewhere in the middle where all the problems there's lots of pros and lots of cons to each side of that, whether we have fully private or fully public health care or something in between. 

I think personally where I'd like to see is. [00:20:00] private health care that is regulated towards keeping the patient first. And if your business model can't keep the patient first and accessibility, then, You need to think about getting out of health care. I like what has been happening recently where the government has gotten more ability to, actually negotiate for different health care costs like prescriptions and stuff like that. 

You know, going to full health care mean, unfortunately at this point in our country's existence, we have to think about price because money for days. You also have quality issues that, happen with government, fully government health care. 

So, it's hard to get into that. And there's going to be people that are, super passionate on both sides. I probably fall somewhere in the middle where it's I'd like to see, private the innovation and the incentives for private industry, but, probably more oversight and guidance and a firm hand, to make sure that people are always focusing on the patient [00:21:00] first.  

Chris: I can't wait to hear some of your interviews down the road with health care providers and 

the big health care systems. It's going to be really interesting to hear their perspective because, I know for me, I've gone in and had hospital stays and I'm like, if you can understand the bill, I mean, let's face it. 

I don't even understand the bills half the time. It's like code 8 7000 432. And you finally dig in and you're like, it's, I paid 300 for an aspirin, you know, it, how does that happen? So it's going to be really interesting following your podcast, because it's really about, wayfinding, finding a way to help people get better healthcare and accessibility and affordability. 

I mean, I don't mean trivialize this, but it really is a matter of life or death for people. I love your heart. I love who you are. I love how you. Are measured in what you do. Um, I love your passion for people and um, I think you're uh, I mean, I just can't wait to watch. I love watching how you're growing and building grassroots labs. 

It's awesome. 

Zach: Yeah. [00:22:00] Well, thanks, Chris. I really appreciate you and all the help that you've been on getting us, along this journey. We uh, we couldn't have done it without help from all the great folks like you at ATDC. So appreciate your buddy. 

Chris: Likewise, man. 

Zach: All right.