Dr. Mehmet Oz Has A Health IT Startup: Enforcer eCoaching

This is a guest post by Brandon Glenn, the Ohio Bureau Chief for MedCity News, where this article originally appeared. Reprinted with permission.

A health coaching startup founded by Cleveland Clinic wellness chief Dr. Michael Roizen and TV star Dr. Mehmet Oz has raised $1.6 million, according to a regulatory document.

MedCity News reported in March that Enforcer eCoaching was aiming to raise $3 million in investment funding. A subsequent regulatory filing revealed that the company has raised $1.6 million of that amount from 15 investors.

Enforcer eCoaching remains a largely under-the-radar company. It has no website and has made no public statements (to my knowledge).

President and chief operating officer Marty Butler declined comment on the funding. Butler calls Enforcer eCoaching “a health-and-wellness company with a proven track record of driving enduring behavior change through daily health coaching interactions” on his LinkedIn page.

However, a document posted on the Clinic’s Wellness 360-5 site provides the most complete picture yet to emerge of Enforcer eCoaching, and describes the company’s offering as “a series of email-based, daily-interactive wellness coaching programs designed to help people prevent and/or reverse diseases attributed to excessive weight and use of tobacco products.”

The company offers four program options: tobacco cessation, weight loss, weight loss to manage diabetes and weight loss to manage hypertension.

Enforcer eCoaching aims to sell its services to employers and says it can help companies improve the health, vitality and satisfaction of employees and reduce employers’ healthcare costs.

Enforcer says it’ll help clients achieve that with daily email exchanges with a wellness coach, encouragement to walk 10,000 steps per day and motivation and education on eating the right foods while avoiding the wrong ones.

Oz and Roizen are known by the moniker the “You Docs” and are also collaborating on another startup, YouBeauty,a website that offers advice and tips to women on the premise that the best way to achieve beauty is to live a healthy lifestyle.

A previous regulatory document,filed in January 2011, indicated that Enforcer had raised $500,000 from eight investors.

Enforcer eCoaching is apparently keeping quiet while it continues to reel in funding and add staff. It’ll be interesting to see when Enforcer takes more aggressive steps to go public with its story and what prompts the move.