When I decided to leave my clinical practice in 2015 to join a healthcare startup, my goal was to help make a broader impact on the lives of people facing tough medical situations. After all, I greatly cared for my patients and had been doing meaningful work each day with my oncology associates (who I tremendously respect). So starting a new role would need to be worth the goodbyes. But I knew there were so many others in need of help who were limited in ways to receive it. My hope was that a new approach would prove effective.
Today my goal remains the same, although the audience has shifted a bit.
For nearly the last decade, I've been fortunate to work with hundreds of business leaders who were responsible for hundreds of thousands of insured lives. I've worked with companies as small as 20 employees to companies with over 20,000. I've assisted companies all across the U.S. - steel manufacturers, freight companies, law firms, municipalities, and national nursing home associations, just to name a few. And, I've analyzed millions of lines of claims data to learn more about disease prevalence and patterns. To say it's been an education is an understatement and the learning hasn't slowed down.
But no matter the client, the size, the industry, or the location, they all had a similar set of frustrations and challenges - most notably they felt uninformed about their healthcare and helpless to do much about it.
In the year leading up to the launch of MyChiefMD, I was fortunate to rely heavily on some of my closest colleagues, who themselves have exceptional knowledge of the self-insured employer space. The more we talked about our experiences, the more we formulated this solution.
Our hope is to give clients the clarity, assurance, and clinical insights that come from decades of physician experience. We believe our history and our physician partnerships give employers a much greater baseline from which better decisions can be made. We look forward to partnering with you and giving you the support you deserve.
Jim Meadows, M.D. holds board certifications in both family medicine and palliative medicine. He received his medical education and training at Loma Linda University School of Medicine in Southern California and practices medicine in his home state of Tennessee.
Dr. Meadows has held local and national leadership roles and has worked with policy makers to push improvements in healthcare access, especially for the seriously ill.
His professional history includes serving as the establishing medical director for Middle Tennessee's first hospital based acute care hospice unit, being the founding medical director of Tennessee Oncology's palliative care program and serving as National Medical Director for a leading national hospice provider. He twice chaired the Tennessee Hospice Organization and has served on numerous health system ethics and membership committees.
MyChiefMD is the third healthcare startup company in which Dr. Meadows has been heavily involved - previously serving as co-founder of a clinical research practice as well as Chief Medical Officer for a complex care management program.