Took last week off. Went to NYC. Got sick. Party.

Natalie Davis, MD [ND] is Chief Medical Officer at Paducah, KY-based PreventScripts.

HD:  You are originally from Kentucky, correct?
ND: I am a fifth-generation western Kentucky native, and I am told one of my great-grandfathers was the only person enlisted in the Civil War for the Union from Marshall County.

HD: What does PreventScripts do?
ND: We help providers, employers–and most recently consumers, with PreventScripts Direct–identify risk for metabolic conditions like obesity, diabetes and hypertension, and offer bespoke interventions to patients and employees. With over 36,000 patients under contract PreventScripts helps providers creates new revenue streams while improving patient outcomes and lowering costs. PreventScripts is in the “permanent behavior change” business. 

[Software Platform Demo] 

HD: How has the company been funded to date?
ND: We are venture-backed. Our investors include Keyhorse Capital, St. Louis, MO-based iSelect Fund, Nashville’s Jumpstart Foundry, Commonwealth Seed Capital and Bluegrass Angels. Angel investors include Brian Luftman, Michael Johnson, Jamey Edwards, Greg Carlton, Rob Followell, Terri Lundberg, JP Kelly, Mark Workman, Bill Jones and more. 

HD: You are an LP in Scrub Capital. First, tell us what Scrub is. Second, how did you get involved?
ND: Scrub Capital is a venture fund investing in early-stage healthcare startups. Scrub writes $100K – $300K strategic checks into pre-seed, seed and some Series A opportunities. A lot of clinician insiders and innovators are involved.

I became interested in Scrub in the winter of 2023 / 2024. I knew Christina Farr as a prolific and passionate health journalist who I met through my affiliation with Startup Health as a “Health Transformer.” I knew of Jonathan Slotkin, MD, a neurosurgeon, entrepreneur and Chief Medical Officer at Geisinger. I knew Rebecca Mitchell, MD of Livongo/Teladoc and Vive Collective because I met her back at the Doximity Medical Advisory Board Summit in Napa when she was a medical student! I just remembered her as a super insightful and ambitious young physician. Other really smart physician entrepreneurs like Ray Costantini, MD and Jacob Reider, MD were involved. The list of physicians who have also started, grown and sold companies successfully is very, very short. [HD: We see you, Rob Falk!] I just really joined to learn about angel investing, then I invested later in the spring as an LP. Since making that initial investment I’ve invested in 12 amazing digital health companies. We are making 3 to 4 deals per quarter now. Scrub has added a prolific medical device investor from Memphis, Dr. Kevin Foley, who helps us with due diligence on medical device deals. As a founder at PreventScripts who has brought a company to market–with real revenues, real customers, real artificial intelligence with three different LLM’s that drive behavior change in real patients–I know how hard it is to do. And I did it in the middle of nowhere with a two women-founder company. So I love to help other entrepreneurs, and I love to diligence companies. I am learning from a great group. We need more physician leaders! Our healthcare costs are $5T, and patients are no better off than they were a decade ago. Bots for prior auth and RCM are fighting the payer bots who want to not pay because there is low value care.

HD: Natalie is a pediatrician by training. In her words, she “grew up in a  regular middle class family.” She went into medicine because she wanted to help people stay healthy and happy.

HD: How do we get more physicians across the Commonwealth active in investing? Locally, yes, but also on a national level?
ND: We just need to get started. There are amazing tax incentives for angel investing. What are you passionate about? I encourage physicians to think about what they want to see happen in our healthcare system to help patients. What is your thesis? How do we improve efficiency? How do we improve health outcomes for our patients? How do we reduce waste in the system? How do we make our patients' experience with our healthcare system better? Of course, how do we also get venture returns? What is the kind of team I want to back? Is the team gritty? What is their domain expertise? And one of the things I found I struggled with initially was wanting to invest in the business if they changed X, Y, or Z. Will this business work for the healthcare system we have today? Not the “Future Utopian State” that you imagine. That’s a pearl I learned from Ray Costantini, MD, one of the founders of Bright.md. Ray is one of the few physicians who has started, grown and sold a technology company. That’s the company and network of Scrub Capital. I am available to chat with physicians in Kentucky who are interested to learn more about angel investing and want to take the first step.

HD: Your hot take on the healthtech | life sciences startup scene in Kentucky?
ND: We need to really band together and have the portfolio companies helping each other more. If a company is in the Keyhorse Capital portfolio, then other Keyhorse Capital portfolio companies should be helping founders get through sticky points in their business (yikes, only 3 months left of runway, we hired for sales too early, etc.). Same for Launch Blue companies affiliated with University of Kentucky. Same for Kentucky companies who have been through XLerateHealth’s programs in Louisville. Some of us have gotten SBIR grants, some of us may have mutual customers. We can all help each other. We have so much collective knowledge between us and we need to do a better job leveraging the power of our networks. We’ve seen incredible network effects in our work with Startup Health in New York City, utilizing the “transformer mindset” which incorporates health into our work as entrepreneurs. Likewise, Nashville has its ecosystem including Nashville Healthcare Council and Jumpstart Foundry. Our lifespan in Kentucky is 73.5 years, the worst of any state in the country. We have so much work to do. Let’s start with me. If you are a Keyhorse Capital founder in Kentucky and you are working in healthcare, consumer health, the payer space or even a healthy food ecosystem play, (I see you Elixir Kombucha!!) you can always track me down.

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You can read more about Natalie’s investments on her website at www.nataliedavismd.com. Also, check out Quintuple Aim Musings, Natalie’s Substack.

While we’re on Paducah…

DataRovers. An AI-powered, end-to-end denials management platform.

From Keyhorse…

2025 AgeTech Market Map

Keren Etkin’s 8th Edition of the AgeTech Market Map. You should peruse the whole thing. Several times.

I see one Louisville-based company. OdessaConnect.

Y’all, pitch in. Share.

Let’s build community.