Business View Magazine l November 2022

188 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 physician that patients can walk in and see, while the online service has more doctors that patients can request to see on demand. “The NIU Health service has two subscription tiers: a free one for people who have health insurance and a paid service that charges $9.99 per month for those without insurance,” explains Dr. T. “Whichever tier you choose, when you engage with our services and earn tokens, you can apply those earnings towards offsetting your bill, whether a cash payment or a copay. You can even apply those earnings towards paying your NIU Health subscription.” Dr. T plans to design and build the NIU Health platform as a global solution so people can access it from anywhere. As NIU Health rolls out its services, one of its challenges is the tendency for people to visit a clinic rather than use an e-medicine solution physically. “Currently, around 80% come in, and 20% are online,” says Dr. T. “Which is mostly attributable to the notion people have that they must physically see a doctor.” “Our physical clinics capture this market of people who want to visit a physical clinic as we continue to build out our virtual clinic and try to steer our patients in that direction.” NIU Health’s target market is individuals without health insurance and those with government health insurance, two demographics that typically do not have access to private clinics and hospitals. “About ten percent of the population in Hawaii doesn’t have insurance, and thirty percent have Medicaid,” says Dr. T, “which most clinics don’t take because it doesn’t pay very well.” “NIU Health offsets healthcare costs for this cohort using the various sponsorship methods we have, both Web 2.0 paid waiting rooms and, later on, Web 3.0 elements like NFTs and NIU Health Coins,” he adds. For the sponsorships to work, NIU Health must attract advertisers for its patient waiting room ads, something Dr. T says is well underway. “We go to local businesses and say, hey, we have this company, and we are developing this. Would you be interested in being an advertiser? “It is not expensive currently because we are only in Hawaii, so we can develop a bigger package for them. If they like, we can put their ads on the Internet and make a TV commercial for them as a whole package that fits into our five-minute waiting time.” Dr. T currently holds a patent for the five-minute waiting time advertisement concept. Although NIU Health’s primary focus is helping patients get cheaper healthcare and healthcare record access and portability, it is also filling a