Daniels alumna Heidi Schaler’s startup connects busy parents with reputable care for their kids
When you need to find a new doctor, dentist or health care specialist, where do you turn? Google searches? The dreaded multipage, alphabetical paper list of in-network providers from your insurance company? For parents, the stakes are even higher to find the best health care providers to keep their children safe and healthy. But the process of researching nearby providers who are accepting new patients, seeking out recommendations from family, friends and neighbors, and checking insurance status and online reviews is cumbersome.
Daniels College of Business alumna Heidi Schaler (BSBA 2004, MBA 2008) couldn’t believe how archaic the process was when she was trying to find a pediatrician for her newborn, and again when her other child was referred to a specialist.
“Why is it so hard to find good pediatric providers,” she wondered. “Why is it only word of mouth? Why do I have to rely on Google when I don’t personally know who’s writing reviews and if they are even real or vetted?”
Schaler turned this challenge into an opportunity to help others through a new business solution—AlloFam. The pediatric health care provider matching service is in its infancy with a minimum viable product available while Schaler researches and refines her business model. Still, the company’s concierge solution to help busy moms and dads caught the attention of a Forbes Magazine writer, and AlloFam was featured in the article, “12 Startups Proving Motherhood Over 40 Is A Market Advantage.”
Schaler’s first child was born in fall 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic brought social gatherings outdoors. Through conversations with other parents at playgrounds—and after combing through parenting-focused Facebook groups and WhatsApp chats—she found that parent-to-parent health provider recommendations were happening organically in communities. But nothing existed to capture that information, make it searchable and keep it updated.
AlloFam is currently a white-glove 1:1 service. Schaler learns about a family’s desired qualities in a health care provider, then researches and matches them with vetted professionals. Admittedly, Schaler says the current model isn’t scalable or equitable given membership subscription costs. But, by proving the concept through more than 100 parent conversations, Schaler has developed a better understanding of the market’s pain points. She plans to grow AlloFam strategically to help connect families with known, trusted and recommended providers in their communities.
First, she’s exploring B2B partnerships with relocation companies, HR benefit programs, benefit brokerages and directly with pediatric health practices to build a database of providers.
“Once I get the platform built out to a place where I can scale, it will be able to serve a wider range of demographics and hopefully cost zero money for parents,” she says. “We pay enough for childcare, for school, for sports, for food, for everything… I want to make this accessible for any parent that’s looking for help for their kid, because all we want is for our kids to be healthy.”
In addition to AlloFam and her own family, Schaler’s commitments include training and competing in boxing matches and her full-time job as global operations program lead at Olympus.
“I love building what I’m building. I wish I had all the hours in the day to build what I’m doing, but it’s all about finding balance,” she says. “It’s a hustle but it’s just my own hustle right now. I think I’m doing the right thing, and the universe is telling me to keep going.”
Visit the AlloFam website for more information about connecting your HR team to the company and to recommend your favorite pediatric health providers to the AlloFam network.