Meet Tara Raffi

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tara Raffi.

Tara, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin? 
My first job was as a management consultant, working on saving millions of dollars a year in costs for big hospitals. At the same time, I was literally sitting in a hospital working and couldn’t get an ObGyn appointment when I needed one for a UTI or to refill my birth control. Why was so much energy being spent to fine-tune massive health systems when patients weren’t able to get access to care? So, we re-imagined and asked ourselves: what does an experience look like that builds women up? One that takes the avoidable missteps off our shoulders and lends a hand to co-create a health journey that is designed around our needs? That’s how Almond was born. 

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been smooth! Bringing something new into the world is hard! But it has been so fun and fulfilling that I would not trade a second of it for any other journey. Every time a patient walks out of their visit with a smile on their face or a sense of calm, it makes every late-night and agonizing setback worth it. 

The hardest part of starting Almond so far has been raising money. Most Venture Capitalists (VCs) simply didn’t get the vision – and unfortunately, the first step for most startups is convincing VCs to care. 

To most, the stats we shared didn’t matter (that 75% of the 130M women in the US are dissatisfied with their ObGyn care, or that the US has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed economies) or how sleek our presentation was (oh it was *sleek*). The vast majority responded that they didn’t see ObGyn care as a major issue worth solving or that they didn’t see how it could be done better. They also mistakenly thought that One Medical was doing ObGyn care, which they do not offer! 

They were wrong, and it was frustrating to pitch again and again, to pour our life energy into something and to get a misinformed and indifferent response. But of course, we didn’t give up; some investors did see the vision, and here we are! 

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We make it easy to get ObGyn care in person and over telehealth, all while prioritizing listening to women, understanding their problems, and truly solving them with all the modern evidence-based tools at our disposal. 

First, we make care more convenient in a number of ways. Patients can book online 24/7 in under a few minutes, get weekend appointments, and easily chat with Almond’s care team to get quick answers – those are the basics. We created our own booking system that takes in more information about what kind of care you need, and that recommends the best and fastest way to get the right quality care. We’re typically able to get patients in for a visit several weeks faster than the standard. 

Second, we bring together traditional medicine with the best and latest evidence-based research to truly understand the root cause of our patient’s health concerns and to come up with durable, actionable solutions. Our lead ObGyn, Dr. Christy Evans, is the only Institute of Functional Medicine-trained ObGyn in the country. Depending on the type of membership, she partners with our Health Coach to ensure our members feel supported in achieving their goals. 

Third, we created a beautiful and peaceful space our team and members alike love to be in. This matters. The physical space you’re in while you’re treating and honoring your body is important. Our team created the art that hangs on the walls ourselves! This means that we look a lot different than your “typical” ObGyn office; there are no discolored and faded prints that haven’t been changed out since the 80s. 

We’re here to create the best possible experience for women and we have an entire team behind the scenes consistently talking to our members to learn what we can be doing better and bringing new services and features to life. I’ll tell VoyageLA readers a little secret: we’re currently working on enabling our members to text message their care team this spring. Because who wants to login to yet another healthcare portal? (Though ours is very cute.) 

Pricing:

• Almond is a membership-based model. This enables us to offer services insurance does not cover. Our membership is $250 a year, which can be paid for through FSA/HSA, and for all visits, we accept most major insurance plans, including Blue Shield, Anthem, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, and Aetna.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.almondobgyn.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/almondobgyn/

Image Credits
True Ventures Headshots