Nurx, a telehealth platform providing care for female health needs, has appointed Dr. Jennifer Peñaas chief medical officer.
 
Peñabrings deep experience in telehealth, expertise in primary care, and a passion for expanding access to high-quality healthcare at scale. As chief medical officer she will help Nurx build upon its record year of growth and begin treating multiple new conditions, while maintaining the highest quality of patient care.
 
Experience
Peña is an internal medicine doctor, Army veteran, former physician to the White House Medical Unit, and a trailblazer in digital and telehealth. She joins Nurx from Oscar, where she served as medical director for Virtual Primary Care, while also consulting for Private Medical, Global Executive Medicine, and the INOVA VIP 360 executive medical practice, and working as a hospitalist to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
As an Army physician, Peña served a tour of duty at the White House Medical Unit under both the Obama and Trump administrations, running a clinic in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, acting as Medical Director at Camp David, and serving as Physician to the Vice President. Peña’s Army experience also included tours of duty as Medical Director at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, and a deployment to Afghanistan in 2012.
 
A native of Puerto Rico, Peña received her undergraduate degree from Yale University and her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine before entering active duty in the US Army in 2008 and completing an internal medicine residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
 
“Having practiced medicine via telehealth since I was a resident at Walter Reed assisting with care of patients in combat zones, to my work at the White House using remote diagnostics to provide worldwide care to our nation’s leaders, and recently scaling primary care at a digital-first health insurance innovator, it’s been exciting to help lead the progress and transformation of teleconsultation and digital health,” says Peña. “As I bring my experience to leading the highly credentialed and mission-driven Nurx medical team I am incredibly optimistic about using telehealth to treat more people for more conditions, and measurably improve lives.”
 
Nurx Expands into New Areas of Care
Peña joins at a time when Nurx is experiencing rapid growth, fueled by patients turning to telehealth during the Covid-19 pandemic.
 
In 2020 Nurx experienced a 50% increase in requests for birth control, a 100% increase in home STI testing, an almost 200% increase in requests for herpes treatment, and a 300% increase in emergency contraception requests. Overall, Nurx has provided 1 million medical consultations and had 7 million touchpoints with patients. Company revenue grew 80% year-over-year for core services in 2020, and Nurx is on track to achieve profitability in 2021.
 
“The pandemic accelerated trends that were already driving the growth of telehealth, such as patients being less tethered to a primary care physician and people expecting the ability to get things done online and have nearly everything delivered,” comments Nurx CEO Varsha Rao. “Many who tried telehealth in a pinch during the pandemic, or who formerly saw virtual care as secondary to in-person care, will now turn to telehealth first going forward, and bringing on Jennifer Peña as Chief Medical Officer helps us ensure that we are prepared to deliver these patients the highest-quality of care, and meet their demand for more types of care.”
 
Acne Treatment
This month, Nurx will launch acne treatment, as a first step to making care for common dermatological conditions more broadly accessible. More than half of Nurx’s current patients have told the medical team that they struggle with acne, and because acne is often caused by hormonal fluctuations and treated with birth control Nurx healthcare providers are uniquely qualified to help patients improve their skin.
 
Nurx will treat acne with unbranded prescription medications — both topical treatments and oral medications including antibiotics, spironolactone and combination birth control — which the Nurx pharmacy will fill and mail to patients’ homes. If a new patient is already taking hormonal birth control, a Nurx medical provider will advise them on whether their contraceptive formula is the best one for their skin.
 
To put expert acne treatment within reach for patients who may not be able to afford it otherwise, Nurx will bill insurance for acne medications and work to keep out-of-pocket prices low. 50% of current Nurx patients pay with insurance, and the ability to do so differentiates Nurx from other companies in the telehealth space.
 
Acne treatment is the latest Nurx service aimed at opening up access to care for conditions that are common among women, and for which in-person care is often prohibitively expensive or inconvenient. In the fall Nurx launched treatment for migraines and chronic tension headaches to address the fact that many of their 350,000 birth control patients experience migraines, and that pandemic-related stress and increased screen time was making migraines worse.
 
“I’m passionate about expanding services across the spectrum of the female healthcare journey, and creating a telehealth platform that seamlessly meets women’s health needs throughout the different stages of their lives,” Peña says. “The Nurx integrated platform has improved access to medication and tests for one million patients, and I look forward to leading the medical team as we make healthcare accessible, affordable, and all-around better for millions more.”