Symbol Health Solutions CEO Mike Molyneux identified a problem and created a solution
Posted On August 28, 2022
Successful entrepreneurs typically see a problem in need of a solution or an unfilled niche in the marketplace. Then they build a business to fill that niche or fix that problem.
Mike Molyneux has done just that with Symbol Health Solutions, the company he built and currently serves as president and CEO.
Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston,” Molyneux shares how he identified a problem in the healthcare marketplace and built a business to fill that need.
Molyneux, a physical therapist, had over 1,500 employees in the healthcare company he co-founded and found that health insurance was too focused on mitigating costs and risk and not focused enough on being proactive about the underlying health issues that caused those issues.
“The underlying problem is the ongoing unmanaged chronic disease management … people with diabetes, people with hypertension,” he said. “There was nothing being done to attack the problem. We were only attacking the symptoms.”
Molyneux’s initial idea was to create a health coaching company that would help people manage underlying health conditions through lifestyle intervention and wellness programs before they became major health issues.
“Then I saw the demand,” he said. “It came to me that we really needed to do something disruptive.”
That disruption turned out to be Symbol Health Solutions, a regional provider of on-site primary care clinics for employers who have self-funded health insurance plans. Symbols builds and operates health clinics at the workplaces of its client companies, providing primary care, urgent care, preventive care and a host of other services, including dispensing medications on-site.
Then instead of filing a claim for it, they bill it back to the employer directly, which results in greatly reduced cost.
Symbol now operates all across Alabama and will soon be expanding into Tennessee. Its clients include municipalities, publicly-owned companies and private companies, some as small as 60 employees. Molyneux says their average client is much bigger, however, with about 800 employees.
Some tips for creating and growing a startup, from Molyneux’s experience:
- Identify a problem and create a solution to fix it.
- Pay attention to what the marketplace and the clients are telling you.
- Put an emphasis on, and put time into, sustaining a high level of quality.
- Focus on creating an inviting workplace culture. If you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of your customers.