Partum Health CEO Meghan Doyle: Q&A
Tell us about yourself and Partum Health - what do you offer to parents?
Partum Health is a new kind of healthcare provider bringing together specialty care for fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum to ensure parents get the whole person, whole family care they deserve. Our team includes birth and postpartum doulas, mental health support, lactation, physical therapy, nutrition, and acupuncture. We offer in network care with BCBS, United, Aetna and Cigna for our clinical services and deliver support through a combination of telehealth, in-home support for services like lactation, and in office care when that works best.
Our leadership team includes our founders, Meghan Doyle who is a mom of 2, and Matt Rogers, who is a twin dad. Both are parents with backgrounds in healthcare and startups. Dr. Melissa Dennis is our Chief Medical Officer with 20+ years of experience practicing as an OBGYN here in Chicago, and Autumn Perrault, who leads Partum’s client care, spent years as a labor & delivery nurse and policy expert in maternal and infant care. We are all incredibly passionate about changing the standard of care for families through the model we’re building at Partum.
Tell us about your journey to creating Partum Health - where did this idea come from? How did it start?
The inspiration for Partum Health came first and foremost from our personal experiences as parents. Our families each encountered ups and downs as we navigated fertility, pregnancy and parenthood. There’s so much coming at you, a ton of new information to learn and different providers to coordinate care with. It’s hard even when everything goes right - and the reality is that most families encounter one or more complications on this journey. All of this is happening at a time when you are sleep deprived, dealing with physical and mental shifts, and you want to be your best self for your little one. It’s HARD!
Both in our experiences and in our research, we found there is a massive gap when it comes to support beyond your OB - dealing with lactation, mental health, physical therapy for your pelvic floor - historically it has taken some luck and a tremendous amount of effort to get this very necessary care. By bringing a range of specialties together and using technology to modernize the experience, we believe we can change that and help families get preventative support that’s really built for their lifestyle.
Can you describe exactly how parents typically work with Partum Health?
Our aim is to help parents get whatever combination of care is right for their family - which means things look a little different for everyone. Once a family contacts us, typically through our website (partumhealth.com) or phone/ text (312.516.2422), we set up a short discovery call to learn more about their needs and provide an overview of what we do. From there we build a blueprint for their care and schedule with our Partum Health experts, who all specialize in supporting women and young families. We either schedule interviews to identify a great match with a birth or postpartum doula, or visits with a clinical expert if they are looking for clinical care (or both!). Parents download our mobile app to chat directly with our care coordination team as well as their providers. We also share evidence based resources on the app (and have more exciting content coming soon!). Most importantly parents then get the care they need and deserve - through a combination of virtual care and in person visits, depending on what works best for the patients and the care being delivered. Most families reach out during pregnancy which allows for more time to plan and ensure preventative care is uncluded, but we also get families reaching out postpartum whose needs have changed or who realize they need help as well as parents who are dealing with pelvic floor issues years after birth. We check in frequently and aim to support our parents wherever they are along the journey!
In what ways can parents benefit from your services? Can you share your perspective on the need for more support for new parents?
You already know Partum was inspired by personal experiences, but it’s important to know that everything we do is also informed by the data and clinical evidence on maternal health, which unfortunately tells a woeful tale here in the US. As one example we have a maternal mortality rate that is the worst among our developer peer nations and has actually gotten worse over the last 50 years. Beyond that startling data, we also know there is an incredibly common set of complications that parents are navigating as they start their families - including unplanned Csections, challenges with infant feeding, pelvic floor dysfunction, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, etc. Millions of families are dealing with these health needs each year - and our health system does not make it easy to identify, access, and pay for the care needed to address these challenges.
That’s where Partum comes in. Our aim is to set families up for a birthing experience they are satisfied with and avoid unnecessary complications whenever possible, to ensure every family has both pre and postnatal support for infant feeding/ lactation, physical recovery from birth, and mental health support to manage this massive life transition, just to name a few. And we believe that families deserve hands-on help and to be taken care of during this phase which is why we also offer postpartum doula care for day and overnight. Sleep is not a luxury! It’s essential.
We contract with insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield, United, Aetna and Cigna to help families get as much care coverage as possible. When we look at other high income countries that have far superior outcomes, we see things like frequent contact in the first weeks postpartum, meeting patients in their homes, and providing preventative support as critical elements. We know parents here deserve that same level of care.
What's next for Partum Health?
We have big ambitions at Partum - we believe every family deserves access to the best possible care as they start and grow - and that includes preventative support from specialists and practical help from doulas and newborn care specialists. Later this year we plan to launch in our second state and for our patients here in IL we will be developing more digital content and courses as well as working to expand coverage for services like doula care. So be on the lookout for more exciting announcements and follow along at https://www.instagram.com/partumhealth/ or https://www.facebook.com/PartumHealth
Is there anything else you'd like to share?
It’s an absolute privilege to serve families in what is truly such a special time in their lives. We’re fortunate to work with an amazing team of clinicians and caregivers who really bring their hearts and years of experience to the work they do. We are always happy to connect with families who want to learn more or are exploring options so please feel free to reach out! Our phone number is above and we can also be reached at hello@partumhealth.com
