Grapefruit

Grapefruit Health is a Chicago-based, business-to-business tech-enabled services company that recruits, trains, manages and deploys a workforce of clinical students to perform lower-acuity, high-volume patient outreach work for healthcare organizations. The company positions itself as a response to the US healthcare workforce shortage, citing a projected shortfall of 3.2 million healthcare workers by 2026 alongside clinician retirement, burnout and a shortage of preceptorships and internships in clinical education programs.

The service covers the full workflow: students are onboarded and trained in the specific tasks and protocols of the client organization; a platform matches patients with students who share their background and language; and assigned students conduct scheduled screenings and follow-ups by telephone, documenting the interactions in the company's system. Grapefruit Health describes the platform as HIPAA-compliant and its documentation environment as HITRUST- and SOC 2 Type 2-aligned. The stated aim is to let client clinicians work at the top of their license by offloading routine care-gap closure tasks, while giving students paid hands-on experience they typically would not receive during unpaid clinical rotations. The company also frames the arrangement as a hiring channel, since client organizations can later recruit students who have already worked with them.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Eric Alvarez is a Chicago-born military veteran with a master's degree from Rush University's health administration program. He previously led clinical and non-clinical teams of more than 100 full-time equivalents at the University of Chicago and Northwestern, then worked at a startup that was later acquired by a large electronic medical record company. His recurring work coaching and mentoring clinical and non-clinical students informed the company's original value proposition.

Business model

Grapefruit Health sells student-patient interactions and telephonic outreach to healthcare systems on a B2B basis, with pricing described as success-based and set at $5 per interaction. Students are engaged as contractors and paid stipends of roughly $500 to $1,000 for their work rather than salaries or benefits, which the founder ties directly to the company's ability to keep client pricing low and serve underserved patient populations.

Per-interaction fees charged to healthcare provider clients ($5 per student-patient interaction), described as success-based pricing for care gap closure.

Traction

Client testimonial from the Director of Healthcare Business Development & Operations at NEIS describes Grapefruit Health supporting post-hospital follow-up and continuity of care. As of the September interview, the company described itself as on the cusp of reaching revenue and planning an additional foundational hire.

Latest developments

Following the June 2023 pre-seed round, the company reported growing interest from family funds and strategic investors, a near-term goal of reaching revenue, and an imminent offer for another senior hire.