Massive DINO Found in Pittsburgh

Posted on by

I first got wind of this DINO sighting when this article came out. It’s called Why Google’s GV invested in Pittsburgh-based direct primary care firm PeopleOne Health. Unfortunately, it is behind a paywall but the story is about Cathy Friedman at Google Ventures. Who is she?

Cathy Friedman is a business executive with nearly 40 years of experience across finance, technology, and healthcare. As Executive Venture Partner at GV, she advises the life sciences portfolio and invests across the healthcare continuum. Her interests include adolescent mental health, the full lifespan of women’s health, and more equitable systems for the underserved.

Before joining GV in 2021, Cathy spent 15 years on the boards of leading public and private life sciences and technology companies. Recently, in addition to her role as board chair at Grail (acquired by Illumina), she has been an independent director at Vividion Therapeutics (acquired by Bayer), Lyell Immunopharma, Seer, Altaba (formerly Yahoo!), Radius Health (acquired by Gurnet Point Capital and Patient Square Capital), and Revolution Healthcare Acquisition Corp.

Always interested in healthcare, Cathy considered becoming a doctor. Instead, she jumped to Morgan Stanley early in her career and eventually moved to California to open the firm’s West Coast biotech practice. Cathy spent nearly 24 years at Morgan Stanley, magnetically drawn to the emerging sector’s scientific and entrepreneurial energy. While there, she held several executive positions, including managing director, head of West Coast healthcare, and co-head of the biotech practice.

“Considered becoming a doctor” is a funny line to me. It should go on to say:

Yeah, I thought about becoming a doctor but instead decided to be rich and be a board member of every massive health tech company. Reginald, fuel of my personal jet, I’m off to Pittsburgh!

So, now GV and Cathy think PeopleOne Health is worthy of their money. Who is PeopleOne Health? They are a DINO stalking the same grounds as some really great independent DPC docs like Natalie Gentile, MD, Kirsten Lin, MD, Rebecca Byard, MD, and Emily Scott, DO. You can see their info here.

Why is PeopleOne Health a DINO? This is often debated but here are my concerns:

  1. The article calls them DPC but I cannot see where they actually define their services or prices.
  2. They have at least 8 C-suite administrators. This doesn’t count board members or on-site admins.
  3. The doctors and others see 16 patients a day (found on their website). DPC docs see less than half that on average.
  4. You cannot open up any website to see any individual clinic.
  5. They are expanding rapidly around PA and also into FL and OH.
  6. They keep receiving private equity funding – at least $40 million from the articles in their resource section.

Their website is so generic and vanilla that I would give you more info if I could but it just isn’t there. Articles all claim they are DPC and they themselves say they are a membership model that doesn’t bill insurance. They do NOT give prices anywhere. They do not list any doctors’ names that work there. They do not list how many real physicians who are actually working there. In fact, this is the only thing I found:

Okay, so this is a doctor saying this? He won’t even give his name? That’s weird.

I would love for others to give me their thoughts on this. If you live in Pittsburgh and know some more info then leave a comment.

Until then, stay safe from this massive DINO.

About Douglas Farrago, MD

Dr. Farrago is a retired family physician based in Forest, Virginia. Since 2021, he has run DPCnews.com, a leading resource for the Direct Primary Care (DPC) movement. He is the author of three best-selling books on Direct Primary Care: The Official Guide to Starting Your Own Direct Primary Care Practice The Direct Primary Care Doctor’s Daily Motivational Journal Slowing the Churn in Direct Primary Care (While Also Keeping Your Sanity) In 2016, Dr. Farrago conceived the idea for the Direct Primary Care Alliance and co-founded the organization alongside other pioneering DPC physicians. He is widely recognized as a leading expert in the DPC model and frequently lectures to medical students, residents, and practicing physicians on how to successfully start and run their own DPC practices.Dr. Farrago sold his Direct Primary Care practice in October 2020 but continues to receive care there as a patient.