Trying to bring affordable, painless lab tests to the masses, Theranos is breaking into a new market in collaboration with one of Pennsylvania's major insurers.
Palo Alto, California-based Theranos is partnering with Capital BlueCross in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to bring the company's new direct-to-consumer blood testing options to as many as 1.3 million insurance customers.
Capital Blue, Central Pennsylvania's largest insurer, has been working with Theranos for the past few years to explore ways to increase access to preventative and diagnostic blood tests in more rural regions. Now, the two organizations say they are charging full steam ahead in trying to expand testing access, price transparency and affordability.
"Our partnership with Capital BlueCross is centered on a common mission: to provide access to high-quality, affordable health care, so that people everywhere can own their health and take action to live their best lives," said Theranos founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes.
Holmes started Theranos in 2003, instead of finishing a microbiology degree at Stanford University, and today the company is valued at around $9 billion--based largely on its disruptive potential. Theranos' technology can screen for hundreds of diseases and conditions with just a finger prick's worth of blood, and the prices are made available and pegged at no more than half of what Medicare pays.
The company's lab technology recently received FDA clearance, and has made its tests available direct-to-consumers and through physicians via Walgreen's clinics in Palo Alto and throughout Arizona. Aside from a research collaboration with the Cleveland Clinic, this is Theranos' first foray outside of California and Arizona.
In Central Pennsylvania, Theranos lab tests will be available at Capital BlueCross's own health and wellness retail stores, and through a network of Theranos Wellness Centers.
"We found Theranos to be the best lab for our members," said Gary D. St. Hilaire, President and CEO of Capital BlueCross. "They've been able to implement their unmatched technology and processes to provide access to accurate, convenient, and low-cost lab testing services.
In an industry with a notorious reputation for opacity, where consumers struggle to find out costs and prices, Theranos' pricing transparency "reflects tremendous integrity," St. Hilaire added.
"Our members will have easy access to best quality and most convenient testing and will know up front how much their out of pocket payments may be, including precise deductibles," he said. "As an insurance provider, it is important for us to partner with companies who are using innovation to address and solve the toughest problems in healthcare."
A patient-centered disruption of the lab test If Elizabeth Holmes has her way, a reinvented blood test will liberate Americans paying for lab tests and help cultivate a new kind of preventative healthcare.