Galileo

Integrated Virtual Care

Andrew Kuzemczak
July 02, 2025

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Welcome to the 2 new subscribers who have joined Future Human since our last edition! Join 201 other leaders learning about the future of human health by subscribing here:

TL;DR

Founded by Dr. Tom X. Lee—who also built One Medical and Epocrates—Galileo is more than just a telehealth app. It’s a team-based, multi-specialty medical practice designed to unify fragmented care with a proprietary tech platform that integrates virtual, in-home, and in-clinic services.
Galileo employs full-time clinicians working collaboratively in care teams. Its proprietary software consolidates patient data in real time to guide diagnoses and treatments, reducing ER visits and improving chronic disease management. For employers and individuals alike, Galileo offers convenient, 24/7 access to a comprehensive care team through its app—without being insurance—making care more affordable and effective
With millions of uninsured or underinsured Americans facing delayed or fragmented care, Galileo’s model provides bilingual primary and specialty care 24/7, including the nation’s first end-to-end Spanish-language virtual medical group. Economically, Galileo eases healthcare costs by reducing expensive hospital use and medical debt, while supporting a healthier, more productive workforce.

Hi friend,

Welcome back to Future Human! For those of us in our mid- to late-twenties, it is undeniably wedding season. I am currently in the middle of three straight weeks of travel for nuptials, so my dance moves are improving while my bank account drains. Got to love it! I recently finished my best man speech for the next one, so tune in next week to hear how it goes. I’m not the funniest guy, but I think the piece is good and I am excited to support my friend on this special day. When you read this, I’ll probably be rehearsing my spectacular entrance with the maid-of-honor. Should I do the very original bouquet football toss or partner shot?

Separately, I am in my second week of this summer healthcare management fellowship and boy-oh-boy is it fantastic. This may not read as exciting, but the executives we have met with have really laid out all the cards on how the hospital runs, the money flows, the current macroeconomic tides impact care delivery. I have learned so much. Ask me about revenue cycle management, I dare you!

Okay, now back to science. For newsletter #19, we are investigating a new type of startup. We are taking a break from hardware and software, and instead are diving deep into a new medical practice model.

So with that, let me ask you:

When care becomes continuous yet mediated by screens—does the patient-doctor relationship evolve into something deeper, more accessible, and more personal—or does it flatten into a transactional thread of chat bubbles, stripped of human connection?

The Story

In a world of fragmented clinics, rushed 15-minute appointments, and “portal messages” that feel more like customer support tickets, Dr. Tom X. Lee set out to build something fundamentally different.

Galileo, founded in 2017, was never meant to be just another telehealth app or concierge clinic. It was the product of two decades of battle scars from building the tools doctors use (Epocrates) and the clinics patients love (One Medical). After those exits, Lee asked a harder question: What would it take to deliver high-quality care to everyone—not just the well-insured or the well-connected? Galileo is his answer.¹^,²^,⁴

The company started with a simple but radical goal: re-architect the system from the inside out. That meant not just layering a digital interface over broken infrastructure, but rebuilding the entire care delivery stack—team-based medicine, home visits, phone consults, behavioral health, complex case management—all tied together with a proprietary tech platform built to unify fragmented patient records.

Dr. Lee called it a “future model of care that could reach the first and last mile with equal intensity”. Think of it as an always-on medical practice that doesn’t just treat acute problems, but manages entire lives—accessible whether you're a single working parent or a Medicare beneficiary.³

The reach today is staggering: Galileo operates across all 50 states and supports care in homes, clinics, mobile vans, and through virtual channels. The startup works with a range of enterprise partners—regional and national health plans, Fortune 500 employers, and even small businesses—offering customized health plans without becoming an insurer itself. The value prop: improved outcomes, lower costs, and a far better experience for both patients and providers.

Though the company has kept a relatively quiet public profile, it’s been backed by over $237M in funding and was most recently valued north of $550M. The Series E closed this past March, with investors still undisclosed.

What Galileo is really betting on, though, isn’t just better tech or new billing codes—it’s a belief that if you give great clinicians the right tools, time, and teams, you can rebuild the system from scratch.

The Tech

If you’ve ever tried to get care through a traditional health system—where it takes two weeks to book a 15-minute visit that leads to a referral that leads to another wait—you know the machine isn’t built for people. Galileo flips that.

At its core, Galileo is a multi-specialty medical practice wrapped in a tech stack, designed not just to be convenient, but actually comprehensive. The care model spans virtual, in-home, and in-person visits—but the real magic happens behind the scenes.

The platform’s backbone is its proprietary clinical software. It unifies patient records across encounters, flags key patterns in data, and routes cases to the right team members at the right time. Galileo doesn’t rely on memory or faxes to get things right. Their doctors are armed with real-time, structured data that actually helps them make decisions—and helps patients avoid the all-too-common misdiagnoses and repeat labs of legacy care.³^,⁵

And unlike most telehealth platforms, Galileo clinicians aren’t gig workers logging in between shifts. They’re full-time providers. That means when you message a doctor at 2am about your asthma flare-up, you’re not just getting a reply—you’re tapping into an internal database of primary care, chronic care, and specialty consultants who already know your history.

For employers and enterprise partners, this model translates to serious impact. Galileo serves highly distributed, often high-risk workforces with over 40% engagement in populations where most members live with chronic conditions. ER visits drop. Outcomes improve. People actually use the benefits they’re given. And at $19/month for small businesses, it's a no-brainer compared to the usual cost-sharing patchwork.

For individuals, the Galileo experience lives inside the app. You can text or video chat 24/7 with a care team that knows your history. Need a prescription refill, lab order, or referral to a specialist? It’s all routed through your membership—no waiting room, no extra charge, no needing to see one doctor just to get permission to see another.

It’s not insurance—it’s healthcare. Delivered through software. Built to manage your health longitudinally, not episodically.

The Market

Telehealth isn’t a novelty anymore—it’s the new front door to healthcare. In 2024, the global telehealth market hit $123 billion, and it's projected to grow at a blistering 25% CAGR through 2030. The drivers are clear: nearly universal smartphone adoption, better internet infrastructure, a shortage of primary care doctors, and a post-pandemic shift in consumer expectations. Patients don’t just accept care through their phones anymore—they prefer it.⁶

In the U.S., where nearly 50 million people are now using remote patient monitoring tools, the telehealth market is booming—and highly fragmented. North America accounts for nearly half the global market, led by innovative players building tools that bridge gaps in care, especially for chronic disease management. It’s not just startups leading the charge—tech giants like Apple, Google, and IBM are all leaning in, building infrastructure for mobile-first healthcare experiences and betting big on subscription-based services.

Where many players offer single-point solutions—prescription refills, urgent care, or remote monitoring—Galileo is going for the full stack. Think of it less like a feature and more like a full-blown medical practice, delivered virtually and supported by in-person options when necessary.

Competitors like Ro have built vertically integrated platforms that work well for low-acuity care and medication delivery. One Medical, Galileo’s cousin through founder Tom X. Lee, was acquired by Amazon and integrates in-person care with a slick digital layer and employee health offerings. Zocdoc connects patients to doctors for booking and reviews, and Doximity powers physician communications. Each solves a piece of the puzzle. Galileo is trying to solve the whole thing.⁷

And the differentiator isn’t just tech—it’s the model. Most telehealth companies rely on moonlighting doctors logging on for quick encounters. Galileo fields full-time care teams who practice together and share knowledge. The result? More longitudinal care, less fragmentation. More proactive management, fewer ER visits. And because Galileo isn’t insurance, it’s able to cut out the overhead and deliver care directly—via employer contracts, small business plans, or consumer subscriptions.

The telehealth market may be getting crowded, but few are building actual medical practices inside the cloud.

The Sick

We don’t talk about it enough, but for millions of Americans, the hardest part of getting care isn’t the diagnosis—it’s finding someone to call in the first place.

Roughly 24.7 million people under 65 in the U.S. are uninsured, including 10.9% of working-age adults and nearly 4% of children. That’s not just a stat—it’s a system-wide failure. For many, care is delayed, skipped, or rerouted to urgent care centers and ERs for problems that could have been managed earlier, cheaper, and better.⁸

Across demographics, access remains deeply unequal. Nearly 25% of Hispanic adults and 10% of Black adults still lack insurance. These same groups face the steepest barriers to primary care—whether it’s navigating language gaps, scheduling hurdles, or being unable to take a day off work to sit in a waiting room.⁹^,¹⁰^,¹¹

Enter Galileo.

Designed for the 90% of healthcare that doesn’t actually require a brick-and-mortar visit, Galileo is meeting patients where they are—on their phones, in their homes, and in their language. As of this year, it became the first 24/7 end-to-end Spanish-language virtual medical group, staffed by bilingual, bicultural clinicians delivering full-spectrum primary and specialty care. With 53 million Spanish speakers in the U.S. and rising, linguistic access isn’t optional.¹³

But even for the insured, care is often delayed—not because people don’t want it, but because the system makes it hard. According to a recent survey, 77% of Americans turn to urgent care or walk-in clinics simply for faster service. The traditional PCP model is collapsing under demand, leaving patients to patch together their own care from disconnected sources.¹²

For a low monthly fee (often employer-covered), Galileo patients get 24/7 access to a care team that includes doctors, nurse practitioners, and health advocates—all on call and up to speed on your history. No referrals needed for internal consults. No extra charge for “off-hours.” And no trying to remember your medication list during a rushed visit—your record lives with the team that knows you.

For the many still slipping through the cracks, Galileo isn’t just building a better tool—it’s restoring what it means to be cared for.

The Economy

The U.S. healthcare crisis isn’t just breaking patients—it’s breaking the economy. When care is inaccessible, the costs don’t disappear. They just show up later, and they hit everyone.

Take the 41 million Americans without insurance. A recent report estimates that this gap costs the country between $65 and $130 billion every year—not because we’re spending too much on uninsured patients, but because we’re spending too late. Poorer health, shorter lives, more missed workdays, and skyrocketing emergency interventions make up the true bill.¹⁴

It’s not just the uninsured who are underwater. Over 20 million people owe medical debt in the U.S., with at least $220 billion collectively on the books. Millions owe more than $1,000. For some, it's over $10,000. That’s not just a burden—it’s a drag on spending and a source of financial insecurity.¹⁵

Meanwhile, hospitals are collapsing under a system that pays less than it costs to operate. In 2023 alone, hospitals absorbed $130 billion in underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid, with losses worsening 14% annually since 2019. Add rising labor costs, inflation, and declining reimbursement rates, and you have an economic model that is actively eroding.¹⁶

Galileo offers a pressure release valve. By focusing on cost and convenience simultaneously, Galileo makes care not only accessible, but more efficient—and less reliant on expensive infrastructure. Virtual-first care doesn’t require a hospital wing. A bilingual primary care team available 24/7 through a smartphone costs a fraction of what a fragmented specialist system does. And catching conditions early means fewer ER visits, less hospital use, and more consistent management of chronic diseases before they spiral.

For employers, this means real savings. As premiums rise, companies face a hard tradeoff: cut coverage, cut wages, or cut jobs. Galileo’s employer plans offer a third path: provide better access without busting payroll. And when workers aren’t skipping care, they’re healthier, more productive, and more mobile.¹⁷

In sum, Galileo is not just filling a gap in care—it’s correcting a market failure. A healthcare system that is cheaper to run, easier to access, and better at keeping people well is more than good medicine. It’s good economics.

Because when care is affordable and proactive, everyone gets to show up—on the job, at home, and in life.

My Thoughts

I was hesitant to write a deep dive on a medical practice model for some time now as I thought it was less immediately impactful on the future of human health than a piece of hardware, software, or a therapeutic. After bringing this all together, however, I stand happily corrected. Work to remodel patient services is vital. In the coming months, I hope the startup gathers even more attention for the work they are doing.

I look forward to following Dr. Lee on his journey with company #3. Who knows what he will brainstorm next!

To more lives saved,

Andrew

I always appreciate feedback, questions, and conversation. Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn @andrewkuzemczak.