FLIGHT PATH
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FLIGHT PATH
Flight Path to HLTH USA: A Conversation with Speaker Zoya Khan
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We touch base with Zoya Khan as we set a course for HLTH USA!
Welcome to Flight Path, the podcast where we explore the journeys behind bold leadership, innovation, and lasting impact. Each episode we sit down with leaders, innovators, and rule breakers who built their success by doing the work, learning the lessons, and sometimes ignoring the map altogether. Whether you're navigating leadership, healthcare, technology, entrepreneurship, or simply trying to figure out what's next without losing your mind, you're in the right place. Before we take flight, we'd like to thank our sponsor, EFAX. Helping businesses and professionals stay connected with secure difficulty document share. Facts online with eFax. Now facts must be built. Adjust your altitude and get ready for stories, insights, and conversations that just might change your course. Welcome aboard. This is Flight Path.
SPEAKER_01Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of Flight Path. We are flying to Health. So this is the Flight Path to Health. Can't wait. It's actually Bluebird Leaders' first time going to health, if you can believe it or not. So we're super excited to go support them and see what it's all about. So welcome, Zoya Khan. We're so excited to have you. How many times have you been to health?
SPEAKER_00I've been to health twice now. Um, and I haven't been for a long time. Uh I think it was just heads-down building. So yeah, I'm very excited to go back.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And what is your favorite memory in, you know, the two times that you've been? What makes it so good?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. The first time I went, it was crazy. They had these like wild concerts and they brought Flowrida. And we were like in uh uh this like massive cuz, I don't know, club, because I don't know what it was, but they bought Flowrider and it was like a bunch of healthcare professionals getting down to Flowrida, which is hilarious and has never left my mind. Um, and yeah, that was one of my memories. Another one was probably just like how they turn conferences on their on its head, and it's just this like very fun, very colorful experience for everybody attending. So yeah, love health.
SPEAKER_01I think that's why Bluebird Leaders and Health uh work good together because we're sort of like the Montessori school of the conference industry where we are learning, we're networking, and you know, we have the panels and the talks. But then as we like to say at Bluebird Leaders, we bring the pink and health brings like the big names and the fun. And like so last year at our big conference, one of my board members, I won't call him out, uh, tore it up so much on the dance floor that he tore his Achilles attendant. So if that oh my gosh, oh that's intense.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully we have fun. There were seven health professionals. I guess the best thing about health is that there's actual like doctors on site. So, you know, when you raise your hand and you're like, Is there a doctor here? Like, there's like a hundred of them.
SPEAKER_01We did, we had doctors, and then my niece last year too, she got altitude sickness because we were in Colorado. So she's like, I need to go to urgent care. And I was like, Nope, where's the doctor? And like five came running, right? So yeah, it's the best. Oh my gosh, wow, what a time! Love it. So your founder, like me, you have drink that entrepreneur blood uh Kool-Aid, which is like, you know, a little too much, yeah. But once you start drinking that Kool-Aid, it's like, you know, it's so much fun, right? So tell me a little bit about your background, how you got started, and then why and how you made that leap to just become an entrepreneur and founder, because it's hard for some people.
SPEAKER_00So my background is healthcare. Um, I dropped out of medical school, actually, and I um much to my parents' demise, they were like, No, why are you doing this? I was like, I want to go pursue my dreams. Um, and so my background was neuroscience and AI. Uh, I studied that and um really was always looking at like how technology and healthcare could mirror each other and really integrate into each other instead of being these like two sparse industries. So um started off overseas in a telehealth platform. They were bringing telehealth education, and I got like a huge operating experience and how to operate how technology was used being used across um cultures, across languages. And I thought that that was really interesting because you could be sitting on one place and be scaling in a completely different country. We were sitting in the UAE in Dubai, and then we were scaling in Ethiopia, which was wild. You're like, okay, this is when I had gone out of college 2013, right? I was like, this is still very new and very cool. Yeah. Um then I came back to the Bay. So I'd grown up in the Bay, came back to the Bay, worked under longtime health influencer uh Matthew Holt, who was the one of the co-founders of Health 2.0, so the back in the day tech conference. It it kind of like just came right before health. It was probably like the early days of health and what health became. And he was showcasing a lot of really cool new technology. Um, I became his uh the youngest editor-in-chief with him at the healthcare blog. Then I ran his accelerator, which is called Smack Health. So it's like health, health, health, health, health, health, tech, all this stuff. Very quickly got poached to the VC world. Um, and so I became a venture. I wanted to venture. Uh, some of my deals were Omada, uh, lemonade. I supported our uh our team on Omada was uh our actually first check-in at that firm. And then we supported all of their rounds, and then same with Lemonade Health that exited to 23 and me. So that was really cool. Um, got a lot of experience of healthcare, but you know, being in your 20s, you're like, oh, I wanna, you know, I want to go see what else I can do and what else I can explore and all my other passions. Um stepped away for a second and actually built a solution in the event management and organization uh in the in event management and organization tool for Fortune 500. So did that for about two years, sold that company three weeks postpartum. Um, you said you have an 11-year-old. And I when I was going through the birth experience, it was insane. In my early 20s, I did not understand the impact of healthcare. Once I had a child, I fully realized why healthcare is so necessary and why advocacy is so necessary. And um, I had to dedicate my life back to it. So I stole my company and I was like, this is my whole life's goal and mission now is to improve care for mothers. Um, so mothers aren't alone when they're giving birth. Um, that's how I got to Raya Health. So been drinking this Kool-Aid for a few years now.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so tell me about what your company does and how are you actually helping the mothers, you know, either through the pregnancy or postpartum, or like tell me tell me what it does.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Raya Health for maternal health services covered by insurance. So we unlock different services and service providers in your insurance. We started in doula care um and we launched in California. We're about a year and three months old, and we are uh, you know, we have thousands of patients, hundreds of providers. Um, we're actually live, we're going live in five more states. So bringing us to six total. Um, doula care is what we've focused on, and what a doula does for our listeners. I don't know if everybody knows what Adula is. Um is a birth professional who helps families, expecting families before birth, during labor and delivery, and then postpartum as well. So um helps mom emotionally, helps expecting fans expecting families emotionally, physically, mentally, and then can also help with also um like light household tasks, chores, things like that. So what the US has found is in a lot of the research, this is a lot, this is a benefit live in 27 states with 20 more passing legislation to make it go live in 2027 is that if you provide paid-for-dula care to the mother, C-section rates, postpartum depression, postportive anxiety, readmission rates, birth weight, all of that has positive outcomes and positive experiences for moms. So who knew if you gave moms more help? Who knew? But the outcomes would be better.
SPEAKER_01We didn't do that. And I would get a little extra help when my you know newborn isn't sleeping to you know helping, yeah, to tell you that it's all normal, you know. Oh, yeah, that part too, right? Because postpartum your grain is just like wacko McGee. My husband would be like, I love you, but you've already told me that three times. And I'm like, I don't need paper. I mean, it's weird.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah, it's so true because you don't know what you don't know. And if it's your first, they're your guinea pig. You're like, I don't know, I'm figuring this out as much as you are, you know, and right it's just a huge shock to the system. Sorry.
SPEAKER_01And I love that you're breaking the barrier of like that you're not alone, right? And so when you're pregnant, it's your first one or your second one, it's like I'm alone, I'm too scared to ask that question because I don't want to look silly or look stupid. And that's great that we have chat and AI, but you need that human connection, and then you need that even more postpartum because you see so many people with postpartum depression, and really it's like somebody just needs to hug them and be like, it's gonna be okay, this is normal, right? And there's not enough of those people. So I'm so happy that you're helping provide that to patients.
SPEAKER_00Oh thank you for all that you do. It's oh no, thank you. This is it's an honor to talk about it. I I'm honored because the patients we serve. I always tell my team it's not just the expecting family or the expecting person or the mother, it's two people. It's her and the baby, or it's them and the baby. And it's that is really, really we we take that responsibility on ourselves every single day. So it's double the amount of patients we're serving.
SPEAKER_01Right, you are, yeah. I mean, I'm I'm sure they just hold the baby so mom can just go shower for three minutes, right? We just want three minutes.
SPEAKER_00You do you really only need three minutes, but those three minutes feel like you get you get a break. It's it's heaven, you it's a birth, it's somebody who's who's seen this so many times over, so you trust them and it's paid for. So now you're not financially burdened anymore. So win, win, win.
SPEAKER_01I'm in New Hampshire. Are you in New Hampshire yet? And if not, how do I help you get there?
SPEAKER_00Oh my gosh. So New Hampshire, I don't believe, is one of the I think it's it's in the list of the 2027 reimbursement. Um, but it is East Coast. It's cut, we're in New York, we're in New Jersey, we're in Pennsylvania. Uh Pennsylvania, we we're we're we're getting there. Let's see if it happened, you know, Medicaid is always a fun state getting state approved is always fun. Massachusetts. Massachusetts, yep, we're in Massachusetts. Yeah, we're watching, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Amazing uh like maternity leave ruling, which like makes people want to live there, right? Even for dads, which is again awesome.
SPEAKER_00It's great. Well, also MassHealth is really great there. The the Medicaid program. They're really like they're they're super easy to work with, and Massachusetts has the has the benefit there too. So we are slowly making our rounds into all of these states because we believe our whole goal at Rial Health is save all moms and save them in any capacity you can, give them a resource, even if we can't save their insurance. Call them, text them, give them this resource, show them like where they can get diapers. I don't know if you saw in California, but every mother now who has a newborn gets 400 diapers. Uh, it doesn't matter socioeconomically where you are, whatever it is, you just get 400 diapers handed to you and life-changing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, life-changing. It's all the like movement of like well care that is still in my mind a little bit slow, but it's nice to recognize that we're we're moving the needle on focusing on the problem before it's a problem, right? Like well care of like taking care so that we don't become admitted or you know, after baby or or anytime, right? Um, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and you know, just just to jump off of that a little bit, it it financially makes sense. The reason why people care about this is because what we don't realize is 32.3 percent of mothers are ending up with c-sections in America. Each c-section care costs a quarter million dollars, basically. Yeah, yes, and it's insane. I mean, if you just reduce that number by so they said um, according to research, half the c-sections happening in America should not be C-sections. They're C-sections because uh somebody somebody just decided it was gonna be a surgery. There was no indication there were other alternatives that the team could use to deliver the baby physiologically, vaginally. What happens is C-section care gets paid more, right? You get more money because it's a surgery versus a vaginal or physiological birth. And that when you see the shifts on why people are doing more c-sections, I mean it's a it's crazy. So when you have a doula in the room, you actually have an the doula just by asking questions and advocating, what they realized is if we just put somebody in the room, there is a almost a 40% less likely chance that that mother, that expecting family will have a c-section. So saving health plans hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, or even post-c-section. So I had two C-sections. The first one that she was breached, we tried to flip her, she's stubborn as all hell, and it didn't happen. So I didn't really have a choice. Uh, the second one, I actually had a choice, and so I did. I chose a C-section. But what they don't what they don't tell you is the post-C-section and how bad your dietisci recti is gonna be because you chose to have the C-section, and I had to have a surgery after that, which costs more money. So, you know, it isn't that I wasn't educated. I wasn't, I didn't know.
SPEAKER_00And you know what's funny is they they and exactly what you just said, you had a choice for your second one, and that is the biggest thing is right, like giving the choice back. Most moms, most people they'll say, Oh no, you had a c-section at first, you're all your babies will be born via C-section now. And but just even having that choice, or exactly what you said, post-op care, how to take care of you, what you need. Yeah, there's a bunch of other comp what people realize, there's a bunch of other complications that also come later in life. C-section, yeah. With a C-section, so if you just try to if as much as you can to try to prevent it, right? You may be that much better.
SPEAKER_01Right now, I didn't know, right? It was I actually was told I was a very good candidate for a B back, but they were like, but you can have a C-section. I was like, Oh, okay, like I didn't have anybody coaching me. Um there I was with my second C-section.
SPEAKER_00No, and and and is it so I have three other siblings. Um, my mom is an OBGYN, and she was also bullied into basically also having a C-section, being a full physician, she opted in for two VBACs, and then on the fourth, they were like, No, you have to do a C-sec. So she, who was fully informed of everything and actually has done these procedures, was being told her odds as well. And it was, I mean, these things happen, right? And even you think the most the most capable, the most educated, even when they're in the hot seat to make a decision, they're like, You're you you some you just need somebody else to help you understand the decision or what information you're being told, or to ask for space to like, yeah, can you give us a few minutes? You know, yeah, I can call it.
SPEAKER_01Um, okay, back to health. November, this November. What are you doing there? Uh are you speaking? Are you looking to network with people? Like, what's your goals?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I am speaking on the women's health panel. Um, we are I'm really excited to actually discuss. I was told that there's going to be a pair, a provider, and me on the panel, and we're gonna be talking about how what women's healthcare looks like in the age of AI, um, and how we can actually improve outcomes. Um, one thing that I'm really excited about is where we are currently in the market with maternal health. Um, you know, when we're always a little late in healthcare, but that's okay. We we're still here and we're and we're making moves and strides. But the biggest thing, the reason why maternal health care is this hot topic right now in the US and across the world is because we've missed our birth rates so many years on. So we're almost 750,000 short in the US. Because you know, it's it's hard to have kids in the US because you don't have your village. So I'm really excited to talk about that. I'm really excited to talk about Linda Gates's whole commitment to um maternal health and menopause care. Um, she just committed, I think, almost 215 million to the cause. Um, you know, and then even McKenzie Scott committing uh, you know, I think she was the single largest donor to planned parenthood. So just talking about why the moment is actually maternal health right now and not the other, you know, maternal health is where diabetes care was 10 years ago when we were all playing catching with diabetes care. I saw Lavongo get bought, biggest deal on COVID. I saw OMADA come up. So I'm like, this is actually just seeing the patterns. I'm really excited to talk about how maternal health is now the is now the hottest topic in healthcare.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and women's health is turning up way more than it ever was, which is super exciting for all of us.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we just had our menopause unicorn. Uh, we just had MIDI, MIDI just hit the billion dollar valuation as well. So I was congratulating Sharon in person. I was like, you all are leading the way right now. She's thinking it's a menopausal unicorn. And like, this is where it is. We're we're heating up.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, right. Well, awesome. Um, thank you so much for coming on, and thank you so much for everything that you do.