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Sesame Newsroom

Get the latest news and updates from Sesame as we make health care more affordable and accessible for all.

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Recent news

Sesame Announces "Buy One, Get One Free" Pricing for Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Testing - September 7, 2022

New "U.S. Health Care Price Index" Shows the Cash Price Healthcare Providers are Charging for Medical Services Performed in all 50 States - August 29, 2022

Nearly 7 in 10 Houstonians have Skipped Medical Care due to High Costs, Survey Finds - August 2, 2022

New Prescription Drug Card from Sesame Gives Patients Up to 80% Savings at More Than 35,000 Pharmacies July 12, 2022

Sesame Secures $27 million Series B Financing Led by GV to Expand its "Half-Price, Whole-Quality" Medical Care Marketplace June 14, 2022

Radically Affordable Health Care for Small and Medium Businesses: Now There's "An App For That" February 16, 2022

Sesame Named to NYC Digital Health 100 List by New York City Health Business Leaders for Second Consecutive Year February 1, 2022

Sesame Introduces Membership Program To Provide Additional Critical Savings On Quality Medical Care November 17, 2021

American Healthcare Costs Have Dropped Up To 67% Since 2020 October 21, 2021

Sesame Offers Free Healthcare To Hourly Wage Workers Across The Country September 15, 2021

Introducing SesameRx, A New Online Pharmacy with Hundreds of Generic Medications at the Best Price-- All just $5 and Shipped for Free with no Health Insurance Required August 31, 2021

Latest coverage

12 Best Telemedicine Companies Healthline

The 6 Best Telemedicine Companies Of 2022 For Health Care From Your Home Mind Body Green - August 31, 2022

Michael Botta On Raising $75 Million To Help You Save Money At Your Doctor’s Appointment DealMakers Podcast - July 24, 2022

David Goldhill, co-founder and CEO of Sesame, on VatorNews podcast Vator Podcast - July 15, 2022

Is It Safe to Get a Tattoo While You're Pregnant? Doctors Break It Down Parade - June 27, 2022

Google Ventures & The Virgin Group Are Investing In Sesame, A “Superstore” For Healthcare Forbes - June 23, 2022

GV, other investors pour $27M into the 'Expedia for medical care' MedCity News - June 15, 2022

Consumers are vetting their doctors online via apps like Sesame Health, Google eMarketer - June 15, 2022

Sesame closes on $27M in funding to grow its pay-per-visit medical care marketplace TechCrunch - June 14, 2022

Google's venture arm leads $27M funding for digital medical marketplace Becker's Hospital Review - June 14, 2022

Best Online Therapy for Teens in 2022 Everyday Health - June 10, 2022

The 5 Consequences of Not Spending Enough Time Outdoors Martha Stewart Living - May 26, 2022

Three Ways to Make Your Employees Feel Valued Modern Restaurant Management - May 24, 2022

Murad Joins Forces with Sesame to Offer Skin Care Consults with Dermatologists, Primary Care Doctors Practical Dermatology - May 17, 2022

Best Telemedicine Services for an At-Home Doctor's Visit CNET - April 25, 2022

‘I’m a Urologist, and Here’s How Drinking Lemon Water Impacts Your Bladder’ Well + Good - April 19, 2022

Mental Health Providers Are Busier Than Ever. Here’s How to Find One. New York Times - March 29, 2022

Sesame launches low-cost health benefits for employers staring down the Great Resignation eMarketer - February 18, 2022

Cash-pay healthcare startup Sesame jumps into employer market Fierce Healthcare - February 16, 2022

How To Get the Most Savings Out of Your Health Insurance Yahoo! - January 27, 2022

Navigating COVID-19 Testing for Kids Under 5 is a Parent's Nightmare Parents - January 26, 2022

4 common causes of back pain in pregnancy, plus expert-recommended tips to get relief Business Insider - January 21, 2022

Healthcare Startup Sesame Bucks Rising Inflation, Lowering Costs Up To 67% Forbes - November 30, 2021

Sesame Membership Model Brings 'Radically Normal Healthcare' to Millions of US, November 18, 2021 PYMNTS - November 18, 2021

How to Reduce the Screen Time Your Children Built Up Over the COVID-19 Pandemic Healthline -Nov 3, 2021

How to Get Through a Nursing Strike Verywell Family -Oct 27, 2021

American Healthcare Costs Have Dropped Up To 67% Since 2020 PR Newswire -Oct 21, 2021

The Direct Effect Sesame Care’s radically simple health care model puts control back into the hands of patients and their physicians. Read Maverick -October 9, 2021

Breaking up is hard to do. Especially with your therapist. USA Today -October 8, 2021

The importance of finding a good therapist – and why it's so difficult USA Today -October 7, 2021

Sesame Offers Free Healthcare To Hourly Wage Workers Across The Country PR Newswire -Sep 15, 2021

Sesame, Truepill bring $5 medications to consumers nationwide eMarketer -Aug 31, 2021

This Entrepreneur Wants to Help the Uninsured and Underinsured Find Affordable Medical Care More Easily Entrepreneur -August 17, 2021

Investors are betting on Zocdoc-like mental health startups eMarketer -Jul 30, 2021

Minimum wage and health care Fox News Houston -July 19, 2021

Cash-Pay Healthcare Startup Sesame Raises $24 Million To Support Explosive Growth Forbes -Apr 27, 2021

I’m a Doctor and Here’s How to Not Catch COVID Yahoo News -February 17, 2021

Sesame, a Direct-to-Patient Platform, Expands Video Doctor Visits to Houston, Texas Yahoo Finance -February 2, 2021

Sesame, a Direct-to-Patient Platform, Makes Healthcare More Accessible, Affordable, and Transparent for Millions of Americans Bloomberg -September 9, 2020

How Sesame pivoted during COVID-19 to support local healthcare providers Google Cloud -May 7, 2020

Open Sesame: A First Step in Fixing American Health Care Medium -Feb 19, 2019

OUR IMPACT

The Sesame effect

By giving patients and providers tools to manage their care directly - Sesame has reduced overall health care costs for over 100,000 Americans.

As the only superstore for great doctors, specialists, labs, prescriptions, and more, Sesame's dynamic marketplace has saved patients over $3 million in 2021 alone.

Awards

"Best Overall Telehealth"

Healthline

"Best Price Per Visit"

OnlineDoctor.com

"Most innovative health startups"

NYC Digital Health 100

Saving people money on doctors and specialists every day.

100k

Patients treated

$3M

Saved by patients

60%

Saved per appointment

95%

Patient satisfaction

10K+

Doctors & specialists

80+

Specialties

From our co-founder

Only radical simplicity will fix a complex system like healthcare. Sesame makes accessing high-quality care simple and straightforward so that patients and clinicians can spend less time on bureaucracy and more time where it matters most.

David Goldhill

Co-founder, CEO

Who we are

Meet the real people behind our mission to make quality care affordable for everyone.

David Goldhill

Co-founder, CEO

In 2009 David wrote a cover story for the Atlantic titled "How American Healthcare Killed My Father." That turned into a book - “Catastrophic Care: Why Everything We Think We Know about Health Care Is Wrong” - which catapulted David to a leading voice for health care advocacy. Those transformative concepts then turned into Sesame, a company that is revolutionizing the delivery of health care to the millions who remain shut out of the system with a direct-pay marketplace that delivers half-priced health care from primary care to specialists. David is also chair of The Leapfrog Group, the nation’s leading advocate for health care transparency. Prior to reinventing a third of the U.S. economy, David served as President and CEO of the Game Show Network and President of TV at Universal Studios.

Michael Botta

Co-founder

Everything Michael has done in his career has led to the Sesame moment, where his role is to oversee all sales, partnerships and clinician relationships. Michael spent five years at McKinsey & Co, leading multi-million-dollar projects to find solutions to healthcare’s biggest problems: pricing; quality measurement; catalyzing competition in the U.S. and abroad to drive better results. Michael received his PhD in Health Economics and Policy from Harvard and has advised The White House Office of Management and Budget, Brookings Institution, and the State of Massachusetts on health reform legislation and implementation.

John Fontein

co-founder

John’s role as the operational leader at Sesame draws upon his proven ability to scale businesses while maintaining their entrepreneurial cultures. Prior to co-founding Sesame, John served as General Manager at GoEuro, where he drove revenue growth zero to over $100M. John founded and sold his music production company, Relabel, after starting his career at Goldman Sachs.

Dr. Marty Makary, MD, MPH

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Makary is a pioneering pancreatic surgeon and professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins. Named one of the most influential people in healthcare by HealthLeaders Magazine, Dr. Makary contributes to The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, TIME, Newsweek, CNN, and is a sought-after interviewee on NBC, Fox News and other outlets. It is Dr. Makary’s vision to transform healthcare; as Wikipedia notes, he is “an advocate for disruptive innovation" such as The Surgical Checklist, which he developed at Johns Hopkins, and was later popularized in Atul Gawande best-selling book The Checklist Manifesto. Dr. Makary is also a New York Times best-selling author whose latest book, “The Price We Pay,” ignited a national dialogue around America’s broken healthcare system.

Michael DiLorenzo

VP of Marketing

Michael has a keen understanding of how to communicate meaningfully with consumers to build market-defining ecommerce businesses. He is best known for launching and building the go-to-market strategy for alcohol delivery service Drizly (acquired by Uber). He has also held leadership roles at the National Hockey League, e-retailer Rue La La and popular mobile app GasBuddy. For his work at the NHL, Michael was named to PR Week Magazine’s prestigious “40 Under 40” list.

Kris Hoffman

VP - Provider & Customer Success

Kris oversees the clinician accounts and customer service teams at Sesame. Kris has led operations in the health tech and care delivery space, and most recently spent time launching primary care facilities for the Medicaid population at CareMore Health. Prior to CareMore, Kris worked on operations at Flatiron Health and was an early team member at Oscar, where she helped scale the member services and clinical operations teams. Kris received her MPH from New York University.

Dr. Allison Edwards, MD

Medical Director

Dr. Edwards is Sesame’s Medical Director and founder of Kansas City Direct Primary Care, a primary care facility that aims to build stronger relationships between doctors and patients and make healthcare easier for all involved.

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Gerard Murphy

VP of Product + Design

Gerard is a progressive leader with a proven record of entrepreneurial success. Prior to Sesame, Gerard led the Tripadvisor Restaurants B2B and B2C product and design teams which was used by hundreds of millions of hungry diners a month. He helped build a restaurant's B2B business from zero to millions of dollars in monthly revenue. Before Tripadvisor, Gerard was the co-founder and CEO of a popular photo management mobile app and cloud storage service.

Chase Knight

VP Sales & Partnerships

Prior to joining Sesame, Chase led BD deals for Caremore & Aspire Health, building care models for the most vulnerable patients in the Medicaid & Medicare spaces. Chase began his career with 7 years at Abbott Labs leading sales teams to drive exponential growth, before attending Columbia Business School for his MBA.