Our Mission

Our Founder’s Story

My own health journey began in 2010 when chest pains landed me in the emergency room. I was just 37, but knowing my father had his first heart attack at 45 made me realize that my family history was not on my side. While I had been athletic in high school running track, I was not proud of my lifestyle in my 30s. My exercise was non-existent and my diet still consisted of comfort foods from my youth: Apple Jacks, Pop Tarts, cinnamon rolls, pizza, and lots of bread. Clearly my habits needed an overhaul, but it took this health scare to motivate me to make the change. Over the next two years, I changed my diet and rediscovered my love of running and cycling. Through it all, I lost 30 pounds and have not had any additional health scares since.

However, this wasn’t the end of my health journey. In fact, it was just the beginning. I began to wonder why I had developed cardiovascular disease so much younger than others. Had my grandma’s diabetes put me at additional risk? Would have benefited from a more proactive, personalized type of healthcare?

Over the next 10 years, with the help of a very proactive and innovative physician, I embarked on improving my health but, more than that, on diving deep into a whole series of proactive tests and treatments. Some of my friends chided me that I was just part of the growing population of “worried well.” They said the crisis had passed. I had reduced my risk via diet and exercise and I should “relax.” However, I had a nagging feeling that whatever had led to my chest pains so early in life hadn’t gone away and might still pose higher risk.

Unfortunately, advanced testing with my physician showed that I had a 30% blockage in my LAD artery in the heart (also known as the widow-maker), and a calcium score that put me in the worst 10th percentile of someone my age.

The testing also found that I was hyperinsulinemic (my body produced very high levels of insulin), despite my fasting blood sugar and A1C being normal. Over time this would increase my risk of diabetes. They discovered this using an OGTT (oral glucose tolerance test), which is beyond the standard of care for a patient with a normal A1C and FBS.

I began to wonder why all patients don’t receive this level of precision medicine. Why doesn’t everyone get a standard of care personalized to them?  Our one-size-fits-all approach to medicine just isn’t right.

Ever since the sequencing of the human genome, we’ve been promised that the day of personalized medicine was coming. I realized through personal experience that we have enough tools, tests and technology to provide at least some of it today. This became my focus, and I started Health IQ do this and more.

We realized that this would be a long, multi-step journey. Evolving the healthcare system to be more proactive and personalized won’t happen overnight, but that didn’t stop us from taking the first step. That first step is ensuring that each senior can rely on us to help find them one of 3000+ Medicare Advantage most personalized to their needs. We call this Precision Medicare*, and it’s a great place to start. With thousands of plans out there, each with vastly different benefits, coverage, costs, and requirements, seniors need a way to find the one that will best support their health in the coming years. We revolutionized this process by analyzing their detailed health records to find that precise match.

This is just the beginning. Over time, we will work toward the long-term goal of giving each senior their own unique, personalized Medicare plan. People are unique, and hence, their healthcare should be too. One day, there will be plans that truly take into account your clinical history (health record), family history, genetics, epigenetics, and more to truly give you the care you need.

The goal of Health IQ is to increase the healthspan of all seniors. We believe the best way to do this is to make precision medicine more accessible. Precision Medicare* is our first step along that journey.