Describe your company and its product.

MacroHealth is a health information technology company that provides healthcare network optimization and claims settlement services to insurers, third-party administrators (TPAs), provider-sponsored health plans, and other payers. The results are better pricing and payment outcomes for clients via the Company’s proprietary analytics and connectivity platform.

What year did your company start?

2017.

Which city (or cities) are you located? 

In Canada, we have a fantastic office on West Hastings in Vancouver. We also have an office in Kirkland, WA across the border.

Describe your company culture in three words.

Challenging, empowering, and rewarding.

How do you celebrate company or employee wins? 

Particularly through this disruptive year, we find ways for celebrating and recognizing employees through our monthly All Team meetings and our Team Updates sent to everyone on a daily and weekly basis (along with some vibrant chat strings along with that). We celebrate new joiners to the team, company milestones, anniversaries, and team successes.

What is the problem that you are trying to solve?

Data and common experience confirm that American health service prices vary greatly. Two different payers for the same procedure and diagnosis at a given provider can pay significantly different net prices. MacroHealth solves for this by providing an enterprise SaaS marketplace platform where healthcare is purchased more efficiently and at lower costs.

What is your biggest milestone to date? 

Based on the confidence in our mission and what we have been able to do so far, we received funding from highly reputable investors in the healthcare technology space. We closed a $54 million Series A round to continue funding product development and expanding our customer base.

What is your biggest challenge?

To keep up with the customer demand for our platform and to continue building scale and features, we can’t hire fast enough! This is especially the case as we expand our technical teams in the Vancouver office.

What is your motto?

We enable our customers to optimize, connect, and grow.

How are you making an impact?

We provide our commercial health plan and TPA clients with SaaS-based tools, data, and expertise at both the claim level and provider network level to deliver administrative savings – and more importantly – directly measurable, hard dollar reductions in total cost of healthcare spending.

What is your hope for the future of tech in BC?

We are looking forward to getting through these challenging times for our team members and others impacted by the pandemic. At the other end, we hope to see more startups and small companies in Vancouver working to solve tough problems that impact communities, families and individuals.

Lightning Round with Virgil Bretz, CEO and Co-founder

What excites you about your job?

I know everyone says this, but I am excited about the daily opportunity to work with terrific people both inside and outside of our organization. I am inspired by others every single day.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome?

I am deeply grateful for every obstacle that I have or will ever face.

If you can give advice to your 20 year-old self, what would you say?

You know when everyone told you that it will all go by really fast? It’s faster.

Words of wisdom to other tech CEOs or founders?

Embrace Entrepreneurial Naivete: You have to be just dumb enough to start an entrepreneurial effort. If you truly knew the risks and workload ahead; if you accepted ‘conventional wisdom’, you probably wouldn’t bother starting.

Favourite city you visited?

Vancouver. Seriously! I’m from Toronto and live in the Seattle area right now. I love every visit to Van.

What is your formula for success?

You get out what you put in. 2. Never deceive yourself.

Name one book that everyone should read.

A fave in our house: Grasshopper on the Road, by Arnold Lobel.

How do you decompress?

A long run in the back country is a perfect afternoon. Even better with friends or family!

Favourite movie?

Sci-Fi for me. 2001: A Space Odyssey. I could name 10 more…