Profiles in Telehealth: Ravleen Kaur - Marketing Associate
Ravleen started her career in health consulting but eventually found her calling in marketing. Learn more about her path to Wheel and what she's excited for in the future of telemedicine!
What’s your role at Wheel?
I’m a marketing associate at Wheel and I work with my co-workers to elevate Wheel’s brand and reputation in the health-tech space. In a nutshell, I write a lot. From creating social media posts and crafting email copy to hosting virtual events for our clinical community, I touch many parts of the Wheel brand in a typical workday. I also love being able to work cross-departmentally with the medical, operations, and legal team as well! Wheel is full of collaborators and we see the benefits of going further together every single day.
What’s your background? What did you do before working with Wheel?
I was born and raised in Queens, NY, until I was about 9 years old. My parents then moved us to small-town Louisiana for work, and I eventually went to boarding school in a different part of the state. I attended Ohio State for my bachelor’s degree in public policy and public health before moving to Austin for a graduate certificate at UT Austin in health informatics and health information technology.
As I finished the graduate program, I landed a health consulting job at Mercer in Phoenix, AZ. A few weeks into what I thought was my dream job, I realized marketing and communications was my true calling. I eventually quit my job and revamped my career plan and goals. In April 2019, I joined a fintech startup as their sole marketing employee. A year later, I realized I wanted to venture back into healthcare - but this time as a marketer rather than a consultant. That’s how I ended up at Wheel! I love working with a mission-focused company in a field I truly care about.
A lot of my hobbies include the same stuff I do at work. I’m an avid writer and am going to be published in a book in January 2021. I’ve spent time doing volunteer marketing work for a mental health non-profit because I realized how stigmatized and under-funded mental healthcare was in college. I’m also interested in Punjabi culture and music and grew up in New York during a time this genre of music was gaining international attention (see: Jay-Z’s "Beware of the Boys").
Why did you join the Wheel team?
I joined Wheel in April 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. I studied public policy in college with an emphasis in public health but was always drawn to marketing, social media, and writing in college. After I permanently made my career switch into marketing, I wanted to go back to the healthcare industry because it’s a field I genuinely care about - healthcare impacts every single one of us! I believe the United States healthcare system is broken in many ways, and COVID has exacerbated those gaps.
Wheel is on the cusp of something great since telemedicine has become the go-to method of care for even my own family and friends, and I want to be part of that!
There is no typical day at Wheel. The virtual care industry moves at lightning speed and marketing as a function is usually at the forefront of it all! For example, if there’s breaking news in the industry, such as a new telehealth policy or merger, we’re usually the ones to post about it on our social media. My day could also consist of preparing monthly newsletters for clinicians and clients, deploying new blogs, and doing lots of behind the scenes strategy work. The most exciting part of the job is the variety of tasks and how fast we move!
What’s your recent Wheel Moment of Reward?
My Wheel Moment came last month when I was able to be part of a series of webinars on multi-state licensing hosted by Wheel. I got to take charge of a lot of the social media promotion, all the email marketing, and setting up the technical aspects of the events. It was exciting to see the level of interest and registrations we were getting - it validated to me that telemedicine is definitely something many clinicians want to do and people look to Wheel as the experts to guide them. I'm so glad we helped hundreds of physicians and nurse practitioners with our contacts and advice.
What do you think the future of healthcare holds?
I’m really excited to see people go to therapy virtually. I care a lot about mental health after seeing how underfunding and stigma affected me and my friends in college. Eradicating the stigma that has existed for generations is hard, but virtual care can make it easier for individuals to seek help discreetly and without taking hours off of work to travel to and from a therapist’s office every week. Some virtual care platforms also allow mental health patients to text their therapists within the app, which means people at risk can more easily find licensed support amidst crises.
I’m also interested to see how virtual care can lower healthcare costs. The United States spends more money on healthcare with poorer outcomes than other developed countries according to the OECD. The rate at which we’re spending on healthcare as a country is unsustainable and not worth it since we’re not getting any healthier as a population. Something has to change, and I think telemedicine will be efficient both time and cost-wise.
Thanks, Ravleen, for sharing your thoughts and being an essential member of the #WheelCareTeam!
Interested in joining our team? Check out the latest career opportunities with Wheel.
Learn more about our team in our staff profiles with Fabe Fan, Operations Associate, Megan Woodrow, Operations Manager, and John Vinyard, Senior Software Engineer.
