Staffing Is Tough, Especially at Hospitals. This Nashville Startup Is Matching Doctors to Shifts in Minutes.

Nashville entrepreneur Joe White jumped into HealthTech startups after seeing first-hand just how cumbersome and expensive it can be to put together a hospital staffing schedule.

After receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees in Health Care Administration, White spent years at HCA Healthcare and American Physician Partners, a private equity-backed emergency medicine and hospital medicine management company based in Nashville. It was there that he ran into the headaches that came with staffing physician shifts.

Post-COVID, it became increasingly difficult to find qualified physicians to fill out the schedule each day. He would give out cash bonuses to those who would pick up a shift. He also remembers even sending flowers to a doctor’s wife because a schedule change got in the way of their anniversary plans.

Now, there are agencies out there that help with physician staffing and provide locum (temporary) staff. But White said they often work with high pricing models that aren’t as attractive to healthcare offices, hospitals, and physicians alike.

“There was no correlation between cost and quality when I got a locum doctor,” he added. Given the healthcare industry's lack of transparency and the fragmented nature of healthcare staffing, White saw a clear opportunity for a marketplace.

And a marketplace is exactly what he built with Sendit Healthcare, which launched in 2023.

It was a “big problem worth solving,” said White, who now serves as founder and CEO.

A Look At Send-it

At its core, Sendit is a marketplace designed to decrease the “administrative burden” that comes from hospital staffing.

Physicians join the platform by creating a profile and entering in their National Provider Identifier (NPI), relevant work experience, and licensing information. Physicians then input what type of shifts they are willing to work, their rates, as well as geographic requirements for any potential shifts.

Hospitals can then see a physician’s profile and determine who is the right fit for upcoming shifts. They can also see who in the marketplace is already onboarded and ready to work within their particular network. Rate negotiations can happen directly between the hospital and the provider, reducing the need for any middle party player.

The physician onboarding process takes less than five minutes since Sendit integrates with national provider databases. Hospitals are only charged when a provider is placed on a shift.

The startup is working on incorporating payment options into the platform as well. Importantly, there is a reputation management system (ratings and reviews) enabled through the platform that improves quality, accountability, and trust between hospitals and physicians.

Building Marketplaces In The Healthcare World

From Uber to Tinder to Airbnb, marketplace companies are common in our tech world. They are, after all, designed to more easily connect specific users with complementary needs, making them potentially highly scalable and profitable.

But there is an inherent problem in building marketplace startups. Founders have to build up users on both sides of the business in order to properly grow.

This “cold start” problem is something that most marketplace startup founders have to deal with. White said for Sendit, it has been much easier to sign on physicians who are ready for more flexible work options. By nature, healthcare entities are often slower to adopt new technologies and platforms.

Still, the marketplace has attracted a strong group of early customers.

“As of last week, we’ve had over 400 providers sign up on the platform — mostly physicians, but also including NPs, PAs, and CRNAs,” White told Hypepotamus. “We’ve placed doctors at more than 30 hospitals, primarily across the Southeast, where we have the strongest roots.”

Bootstrapped in the early days, Sendit raised a pre-seed round led by Chicago-based New Stack Ventures. LaunchTN and Service Provider Capital also participated in the round.

Inside Nashville’s HealthTech Scene

White said building in Nashville is a “competitive advantage” for the HealthTech startup.

The city is home to the headquarters of HCA, one of the biggest private healthcare firms in the world, the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and dozens of fast-growing health and medical-focused startups.

But being located in the wider Southeast region is also something that White sees as important as Sendit looks to grow.

“The Southeast has the most rural hospitals…and the most aging population. It also has the highest population growth. So you've got a lot of different dynamics that I think post-pandemic have accelerated the need for access to care in the [region],” he added.

The team is currently made up of six team members, including co-founder Joanna McCarthy and founding principal engineer Julie Barnick.