05 May On-demand SA health care company expanding amid pandemic

FetchMD CEO Mike Zucker said the company is poised for big growth despite the pandemic in this SABJ article 

San Antonio-based FetchMD has launched a new telehealth division and is exploring growth beyond Texas.

While that expansion is driven in part by the novel coronavirus pandemic, CEO Mike Zucker expects the payoff will far outlive it.

“We’ve been busy. We have not seen a slowdown,” Zucker said.

FetchMD’s primary business was providing consultation and care to patients in their homes or offices. That changed in March. The Alamo City provider was contemplating other ways to reach more patients before the pandemic, having developed the capability to offer telehealth through its FetchMD app. But it was using that technology in a limited capacity, mainly for follow-up visits.

Now, it’s essentially become FetchMD’s core business, given that many people have reservations about going to an urgent care center where there are many other people, Zucker said. Also, he said, many primary care offices are closed.

“This has become a go-to service,” he said.

Before the pandemic, company officials saw this platform as something they could introduce across Texas. Now, they’ve set their sights wider, looking at states that touch Texas, Zucker said.

Doing so is easier than it used to be, he said, due to loosening of regulations that may better enable medical professionals in one state to become licensed in another.

Meanwhile, FetchMD is developing a rapid response team that it can send to employers to conduct antibody testing in the short term to help combat the pandemic.

Zucker is optimistic that the growth FetchMD is experiencing will be sustainable — even expandable — on the other side of the pandemic.