Written and Medically reviewed by Sophia Yen, MD, MPH
October is National Women’s Small Business Month, a nod to the October 1988 passage of the Women Owned Business Act. I thought I’d highlight why it might be good for women to consider checking out who founded, owns, leads the companies they choose to shop from/use. But before we get into the statistics, make sure you get FREE delivery of your birth control by signing up with Pandia Health’s services today!
Did you know that 24/500 = <5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. This is down 25% from last year. Only around 22% of all startups are founded by at least one woman.
Source: bloomberg.com
In the women’s birth control delivery space and telemedicine, there is only 1 #WomenFounded, #WomenLed company = Pandia Health. The rest were founded/led by men. Only 1 recently hired a woman CEO. (*Note: RoweDocs is a Pandia Health partner!).
| Woman Founded | Women Founded | Woman Led | Women Led | Woman Owned | Women Owned | |
| Pandia Health | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| RoweDocs* | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lemonaid | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| PRJKT Ruby | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| Simple Health | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| The Pill Club | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Why does this matter?
A woman understands what it means to miss your period, to worry about running out of birth control, to have painful periods, to be slut-shamed for buying/using birth control and more.
“There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” – Madeleine K Albright, 2006
Also, with more and more telemedicine companies out there, why might it be better to have a #DoctorFounded, #DoctorLed company?
Because doctors have a calling to “do no harm.”
Because as a doctor, woman, feminist, mother of 2 young women, I promise you that Pandia Health will always hold your health above our bottom line. We will tell you what’s best for your health, even if it doesn’t maximize profit or profit us. For example, ask me what the best birth control method is? I’ll tell you IUD with hormone or implant, even though our company only provides the birth control ring, patch, or pill.
The difference between a hired Chief Medical Officer and a founder that’s a doctor is that the founder doctor is thinking about the company and how to improve care 24/7. The founder/doctor has more skin in the game.
What makes a good telemedicine company?
1. Saves you money = Doesn’t make you pay for things that your insurance should cover (like STI [sexually transmitted infectoin] tests. If your doctor orders the STI tests, usually they are free). Tells you when stuff should be covered by your insurance. We tell our customers that under the Affordable Care Act, the birth control should be available with NO copay, no deductible, unless their employer is religious or otherwise exempt. We refer our patients to the National Women’s Law Center. www.coverher.org if their insurance charges a copay or deductible.
2. Lists their providers and their credentials = transparency.
3. Provides evidenced based care. Has academic people on their staff and/or developing their protocols. Because academic doctors get asked by those they teach “Dr. Yen, why are you doing that? the latest paper says you should do this instead.” Thus we provide Ella emergency contraception and educate our customers that if your BMI is 26 or greater, Plan B and its generics are as good as water aka placebo.
4. Provides at least the standard of care – when your doctor starts you on a new birth control, they do a follow up appointment. Pandia Health does a 6 week follow up appointment for FREE. I don’t think any of our competitors do that.
I purposely created FREE followups because I didn’t want any woman to suffer from side effects or risk blood clots/death because she didn’t want to pay for a follow up.
We set up Pandia Health Birth Control Fund to help get donations to cover telemedicine or birth control, whatever women need.
5. Advocates for you.
6. Educates you. We love educating women about birth control and #PeriodsOptional. Our youtube video has 150k+ views with NO advertising, no promotion. We have LOTS of FAQs and Q/A with Dr. Y. We give LOTS of free talks to colleges, high schools, companies.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you and hope that you will educate your readers about thinking about #WomenFounded/Led, supporting women founders, and what makes good telemedicine.
Sincerely,
Sophia
Go to www.pandiahealth.com to get birth control pills, patch, and ring as well as emergency contraception with FREE delivery!
The above information is for general informational purposes only and is NOT a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor/primary care provider before starting or changing treatment.