The AI-Informed Patient with Zocdoc Founder & CEO Oliver Kharazz

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1:32Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, radio, news

1:38Oliver Kharazz:You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio Well at the playground this weekend, Carol, I'm talking to another dad Yeah He's got a startup that uses AI to read radiology and I was saying to him wow, radiologists, that's a type of doctor that is very, I guess, positioned to be disrupted by AI. Yeah, I can see that. And he said, he responded with, every doctor is going to get disrupted by AI. And he started telling me about all the robotic surgery. But there's disrupted good, disrupted. Well, this is the like, hey, robots are going to be doing surgery on you soon.

2:19They are already, aren't they?

2:20Oliver Kharazz:Well, like robots that are not operated by somebody. You know, I'm not talking about like the Da Vinci robot. Okay. Like, you know, that's operated by a single doctor. I'm talking like, yeah, like. Elon's robot's going to come in and operate on me. I don't know about Elon's robot, but yeah. Just saying. I want to know what Oliver Karaz has to say about this. He's CEO and co-founder of ZocDoc. It's the platform that connects patients with doctors. It also provides telehealth and it's increasingly leaning into AI functions too. He joins us from Manhattan. Oliver, good to have you on the program.

2:48Oliver Kharazz:You know, ZocDoc has been around for quite a while and seen many different iterations of technology. Bring us up to speed on where it is right now when it comes to integration with AI and how patients are using AI functions. Yeah, happy to be on the show. So what's interesting is our talk is access infrastructure that connects patients with good care. And for us, it was very interesting to study how patient behavior is actually changing in this age of AI. And what we're seeing is that patients are increasingly adopting AI in sort of the pre-care setting. And the number of them that go in and bring that third party into the patient-doctor relationship has gone up a lot.

3:32And so for us, it was interesting to know how do these behaviors change and what does it mean for the long-term doctor-patient relationship?

3:39Oliver Kharazz:I've had such mixed results using AI as sort of like... For healthcare or just in general? In the sense of asking questions of AI. I had something recently where the answer that I got was totally wrong after I saw my doctor. I talked to my doctor for literally two minutes and he diagnosed me correctly. And it was something that the AI didn't at all pick up. But other times it's worked really well. Where are we in your view about not necessarily AI replacing doctors, but at least supplementing what they can do? I think what's very interesting and what you just said is that it made you more engaged in your care, right?

4:18Like you researched it, you were more interested, you probably asked better questions of your doctor, and it ultimately led to you getting care versus deferring it or going into that visit less prepared. And that's exactly the function that AI can have, and it's actually something that doctors want.

4:35Oliver Kharazz:You know what I found too recently, and then I'm going to let Carol ask a question at some point. Yeah, you keep going. I'm kind of loving it. Here's what I found recently. I was at a doctor's appointment with my daughter and increasingly what we're finding, what I'm finding is, and I don't know if you're seeing this too, Carol, but you know, the doctor comes in and has a smartphone or a tablet with them and says, is it okay with you if I use this AI app to sort of transcribe for notes and for charts? and I said, yeah, it works. And she was examining my daughter as part of her checkup and what she did was she communicated in a way out loud where she was describing everything that she was doing and the results of what she was doing.

5:11Oliver Kharazz:And I realized after I went and read the notes, the reason she did this was so it was picked up and transcribed by AI. And what I felt like is I actually got a more complete version of that visit than I would have gotten had the doctor sort of just taken notes in his or her head and then just written that transcription up later when they sat down to do the notes. I mean, to me, I was happy to have sort of this technology in the room with us. Precisely. I think what you saw as some of the future where we actually connect the benefits of AI and the ability to see a doctor and make maximum use of this time, we believe that that's precisely where I should be going.

5:52Patients want to get information from AI, but they want to get care from their doctor. And that is enabled by AI making everyone more productive.

6:00Oliver Kharazz:I thought she was talking to me, Carol, the doctor, but I realized she was just talking to the computer. She's like, no, no, no, no. Be quiet, Dad. Exactly. Hey, Oliver, so take it back to your platform. So I'm trying to understand. So then how does this fit into what you guys are doing? This is a platform used by patients to find care and make appointments. Doctors are on it. So how is AI kind of fitting into that? And does it create ROI for you guys? Yeah, so we benefit from it, even though we're not directly an AI company, obviously. But what happens is that patients do research the situation more.

6:39As Tim said, they get more engaged. Maybe they get a diagnosis that worries them, or they understand that they should take early action. But the AI can only give them information. Ultimately, they need to see a doctor to find care. And this is where we help them make that insight that they got from the AI actionable and translate it into a visit. So connecting the queries to care. So you have AI on the platform where people make queries about something and trying to figure out who they need as a professional healthcare professional. And then you make that connection. So we make the connection, but they could start their search anywhere.

7:15We're really an infrastructure platform where, you know, if you start your search on an AI layer or Google or anywhere else, you can ultimately turn that into a visit using ZocDoc's infrastructure that immediately show you which doctors are available, which ones accept your insurance, which times they could see you, and then you can make an appointment very easily with just a couple of clicks. Okay. So, in other words, people are doing some research on AI. They're figuring something out, and they're like, okay, now I know what I need to do or what I need to ask on your platform. Have you seen an increase of patients as a result of kind of the rise in AI and chatbots and generative AI specifically that have resulted in more people than coming to your platform?

7:57Can you make that connection? Yes, absolutely. We see that happening. We see it growing very fast from a low base, but it's something that is becoming more and more popular. We see that on our platform. We hear that from patients when we ask them. We also get this confirmed by doctors in terms of what they see in their practice, what fraction actually has seen patients that don't come pre-informed with AI. And I think that's an inevitable trend. And I hope more folks find sort of a healthy way to deal with that, as Tim did in his example. How many come to a doctor and the doctor's like, yeah, no, that was a wrong diagnosis you got on AI?

8:35So, you know, we're not clinicians to sort of say what's right or wrong. we really connect the patients to care. But obviously, we all know that in areas where we have expertise, the AI doesn't always get it right, but it always gives you something to think about and to explore. And I think that's really where the value is, is that we maybe ignore it a little bit less and a little bit more proactive about seeking care and hopefully finding things earlier and leading to better outcomes all around.

9:07Oliver Kharazz:Oliver, give us an update on the business. I mean, this is a company that's been around at this point. It's hard to even imagine. It just means I'm getting old for close to 20 years at this point. You started this back in 2007. This is a company that, like I said, it's been through many iterations of technology and this economy, and it's seen a lot through the COVID pandemic, through sort of like Web 1 to Web 2, and now into what people are considering Web 3 and the AI revolution. Give us an update on the business, as it still is a venture-backed startup. Where you are in that, if you're going to raise more money anytime soon, if you're going to go public anytime soon, what can you tell us?

9:48So we're a private company, so it's limited what we disclose, but we are growing quite quickly. We're profitable. We are masters of our own destiny. And we're really focused on building a fantastic company that helps sort of solve health care access, which is one of the biggest problems in our health care system. A lot of the problems that we then measure and react to are downstream from that. And so we want to fix healthcare from the first step.

10:15Oliver Kharazz:And I know you were profitable last year. Are you still profitable, consistently profitable? Yes. We are, as I said, masters of our own destiny. And we want to be able to invest in sort of the future. But we can do that out of our own strength. You know, one of the things I'm curious, though, can you give us an idea of how many patients are using the platform? How sticky it is? Like once they're on, do they stay? And I'm also curious how many doctors are on the platform and the same thing for them. I know, do they still pay to be on the platform? They pay when they receive a booking on doctor.com.

10:50There's also ways to be on the platform that's free for providers. We have over 200 ,000 providers on the platform and that number is growing quite rapidly. You know, we don't disclose the number of patients, but it's a very material part. So to give you sort of a point of reference, in New York City, where we got started, one in three new doctor-patient relationships get formed on ZocDoc. Interesting. Is it sticky, though? Do patients stay on it and go, OK, I got one doctor, go back there? And same thing with providers. Do they stay on the platform? Yeah, you know, if you just think about how complicated it is to get access to care, from the time that a patient picks up the phone and starts dialing for doctors till they actually see one, even a primary care doctor on average takes 31 days.

11:38On ZocDoc, you can see the doctor typically on average after just three days and a plurality of patients within 24 hours. So that's such a better experience that why would you ever go back into calling the doctor and playing scheduling Tetris with someone in a call center? So it's very sticky. As you said, we're over a decade old. We still have patients from the very first year that we started using the platform. And, you know, it's been sticky for every generation after. So it is just a better mousetrap. If you want to get access to care, ZocDoc is the place to go and the patients keep coming back and proving us right on that.

12:15Just curious, before we wrap up, why stay private and not go public? We're really focused on solving, you know, a very important problem. Now, I personally think that being public is long-term the right answer for most companies. It brings more transparency. It brings more discipline. But there are also chapters in every company's history that you want to do as a private company. In our case, as you mentioned, we did a big business model transition that was certainly better to be done as a private company. And there might be more things that we want to do in the future. but we're certainly open to the deal of good public eventually.

12:56All right. Interesting. Great conversation. Thank you so much, Oliver. We appreciate it. Oliver Karaz, he is CEO and co-founder of ZocDoc joining us right here in Manhattan.