Up & Comers - 2017

Mario Schlosser's path into the healthcare industry was an unconventional one. After emigrating from Germany in 2001, he founded and served as CEO for Vostu, the largest social games developer in Brazil and Latin America. Then, the birth of his first child steered him in a different direction.

Going into the maternity ward for his daughter's birth, he took a printout of C-section rates for various doctors in the hospital. His wife wanted to have a natural birth and he wanted to make sure no doctor was going to push her too hard on that choice.
 

"This is the data-driven way that I like to think about the world."

"When Oscar Health got started, my wife was going through her first pregnancy and I experienced firsthand how complicated the healthcare system was to navigate, and how expensive it was," said Schlosser, who co-founded the company in 2012.

Oscar has raised $720 million in six rounds of funding and some estimates put the company's value at $2.7 billion. It is the first technology-based health insurance company and serves more than 100,000 enrollees across multiple states.

"There isn't any entity in healthcare that has enough data visibility to help you navigate the system. This is the data-driven way that I like to think about the world and I didn't think anyone else was applying that thinking to insurance," he said.

Schlosser is currently leading Oscar in forming an innovative partnership with the Cleveland Clinic to offer the clinic's first-ever health insurance plan. The company is also a national leader in telemedicine utilization--23% of Oscar members use telemedicine--saving patients the cost of an expensive specialist or urgent-care visit.

In the past year, Oscar ramped up its efforts to build tools for providers, empowering them with contextual patient data and generating clinically relevant alerts driven by machine learning. --Valerie Lapointe