How Shelley Cooper hopes to turn her telehealth remedy into an appointment for ‘Unicornville’

No shows mean no dough — but SureShow means cash flow, Dr. Shelley Cooper rhymed, laughing.

“I’m supposed to be really professional and that sounds kind of goofy, but you know, if it makes people remember … ” joked Cooper, founder of SureShow by Diversity Telehealth, in a rare moment of downtime as she prepared for one her biggest startup pitch contests yet.

Shelley Cooper, SureShow, Diversity Telehealth

Chicago-based Beta Boom Venture Academy’s Female Founders Summit is set for a virtual showing Thursday — with SureShow among four competitors on the docket. 

Click here to learn more or to register for the event. 

The event is a culmination of SureShow and its fellow cohort members’ participation in the six-month academy and is expected to bring access to investors, connections at other accelerator programs and access to potential pilot locations, Cooper added. 

“If we’re able to get investments here, then that could be what we need to really get started and push us over and lead us toward Unicornville,” she said through a smile, eager to show the company on the national stage.

Cooper’s passion project — which helps clinics avoid lost revenue by replacing no show visits with telehealth appointments — quickly is growing into a scalable company with immense potential for disruption in healthcare. 

The startup’s current trajectory was a perfect match for Beta Boom and its focus on investing monetary and human capital in women and people of color, the academy said. 

“We now have a patent pending; we have incorporated in Delaware; we have about 25 demos that we’ve done; we’ve got three letters of intent; we’ve signed one contract with a channel partner and we’re about to start our first pilot,” she said, offering just a few highlights — many of which resulted from a successful run in the inaugural OHUB.KC cohort, which wrapped up earlier this year. 

Shelley Cooper, Diversity Telehealth; OHUB.KC’s Third Fridays, December 2019

“The whole OHUB experience kind of laid the groundwork and then each additional experience kind of gives us more and more of an insight as to what we should be doing and how this whole thing works,” Cooper continued.

Click here to learn more about OHUB.KC ahead of the launch of its second cohort. 

Drew Solomon, Shelley Cooper, and Lyndon Breckenridge; OHUB.KC 2019

Such success comes despite a COVID-19 stronghold on startups, Cooper noted.  

“We were ready to go into federally qualified health centers and hospitals — and then COVID hit,” she said, highlighting tactics the startup has used to power through the pandemic. 

“We couldn’t go in to talk to the decision makers. We couldn’t do any demos, but we were able to pivot just a little bit and do all of our demonstrations virtually,” Cooper added. “We’ve been able to communicate with people and I think they’re seeing the validity of what we’re doing.”

As partners come to the table, they’re starting to recognize a need Cooper once thought only she saw.

“My father passed away. He had a chronic disease and he wasn’t able to get in and see his doctor when he really needed to. And so that’s how the notion of no-shows influence in not getting care came to mind,” Cooper said, noting the company’s unique position to make COVID-related appointments run smoother for clinics and the company’s ability to easily plug into existing electronic medical record systems that include the likes of Kansas City-based Cerner, Epic and Meditech. 

“This is going to make things smoother for patients who — when life takes over and they aren’t able to get into their doctor’s office — know their doctor’s office has SureShow,” she said, describing the platform’s patient queue that alerts them to no show-induced appointment openings and seamlessly connects them to a telehealth appointment. 

“Insurance companies are reimbursing [telehealth visits] pretty much on a parity level. After COVID, quite a few of these reimbursements are going to stay the same.”

SureShow is set to compete Oct. 12 for on-the-spot funding at the Pure Pitch Rally in Kansas City. Click here to read more about the opportunity.

With access to opportunities coming rapidly for Cooper, she laughed as she thought back to how nervous she was to approach entrepreneurship as recently as a year ago. 

“Seeing what’s been available all along — that I didn’t know about — compared to what I know now. I mean, there’s so many ways that we can be successful as entrepreneurs,” she said. 

“There’s so many opportunities here in Kansas City,” Cooper continued. “I’m just happy to take advantage of all the different opportunities and it seems as if every time I meet somebody or I do a pitch, the network opens up. SureShow is definitely not the same as it was a year ago. It’s been an amazing metamorphosis.”