Like many physician entrepreneurs, Danish Nagda, MD, made the decision to break the professional mold largely because of a difficult personal experience he had in trying to navigate the healthcare system
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“Despite having health insurance, my father did not have great access to healthcare,” Dr. Nagda said, remembering that his father worked tirelessly after arriving in the U.S. to make sure all three of his kids could get the very best education. “His doctors ended up missing a diagnosis—actually, they misdiagnosed him for a very long time—and he ended up with a heart attack at a young age and bedbound at the age of 60. So I moved him into my home and I became his caregiver for nearly a decade until he died.”
This would have been challenging for any physician working full time, but it began for Dr. Nagda before he was even finished with his training
“The sentinel moment was going from doctor’s office to doctor’s office while trying to balance life in otolaryngology residency. It really took a toll on me,” he said. “I realized there was a way to build a better healthcare system—by doing it on a digital backbone.”
His idea became Rezilient Health, whose key innovation is its CloudClinics, which enables same-day access to primary and specialty care by beaming physicians and other health professionals to community-based offices where medics become their hands using connected digital devices.
The company says its members spend on average 31 minutes with their physician or other health professional. That is more than double the 14.7 minutes spent with a traditional primary care doctor. Rezilient members also use the emergency department less often, have better medication management and fewer hospitalizations because they don’t have to wait to access care. Employers like it too because it significantly reduces their healthcare costs
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As Rezilient Health’s CEO, Dr. Nagda doesn’t have time to practice anymore, but he will take time to share some of his most key learnings as a startup founder at the AMA Physician Entrepreneur Forum, which takes place Aug. 7–8 at the Association’s Chicago headquarters
One of those learnings: Entrepreneurship probably isn’t what you think it is
“This belief that entrepreneurs work for themselves is not true,” he said. “You always have to answer to somebody—your patients, your board, your investors. The reward for me is the ability to build something that works even without me.”
The AMA Physician Entrepreneur Forum will feature more than a dozen healthcare leaders who have built successful businesses, practices and ventures. The forum, for which registration is closed, is just one part of the AMA Career Advancement Collective, a powerful suite of educational programs and training will help physicians develop and advance at every stage of their career
- AMA Independent Practice Accelerator Workshop, Sept. 11–12.
- AMA Peer Support Workshop, Oct. 28–29.
- AMA Physician Leadership Academy, a 12-month hybrid program that combines in-person and virtual learning, Oct. 7, 2026–Sept. 22, 2027.
Learn more and register for one of these career-shaping events now
It’s about changing the world
Entrepreneurialism isn’t a new thing to physicians, Dr. Nagda noted, as every doctor in private practice is an entrepreneur. So are physicians who take on advising roles in other people’s projects
“But the person who wants to go outside the clinic walls, into the badlands, and is not scared of what’s out there—that’s a very different type of entrepreneur. You have to be a little nuts to do that,” he said, noting that his experience with education startup Schoology, during his undergraduate years, gave him added confidence to found Rezilient Health
“I will tell you that if you are that type of entrepreneur, the opportunity cost is not your income. The opportunity cost is what happens to the world if you don’t do it,” he said.
He did the math and figured out that if he was the world’s fastest surgeon, seeing the most patients possible, he could touch maybe 10,000 patients in his lifetime.
“But this year at Rezilient Health, four years in, we will touch 100,000 patients, and we’re probably going to be at a million next year,” he said. “So it takes a different mindset—one focused on breadth of impact.”
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Are you one who asks “Why?”
Dr. Nagda said two things typify the physician entrepreneur
For starters, “You’re the annoying person at the hospital always asking, ‘Why do we do things this way?’” he said. “And you don’t accept, ‘Well, that’s just how we do it.’”
This characteristic tends to play out every day in clinic
“Our industry is built around workarounds,” he said. “All the time, physicians think: Oh, my EHR doesn’t do what I want it to do? Let me find a workaround. Or: Oh, that’s not how the charge nurse of that floor likes things done? OK, let me find a nurse who will do the things the way I want to do them
“We have built an entire industry with duct tape and workarounds,” Dr. Nagda said. “The person who is curious and asks questions is likely the entrepreneur.”
But that’s only half of the equation.
“The other half is somebody who then says: Well, let me go build something. That bias to action is the second characteristic. The first characteristic is curiosity,” he noted. “The second characteristic is bias to action.”
One key piece of advice
“The most important thing for aspiring physician entrepreneurs is to fall in love with the problem, not the solution,” Dr. Nagda said
“This is something that our industry really struggles with,” he added. “I come across a lot of physicians who are building things where they say, ‘I have the perfect solution.’ And I respond, ‘OK, but what problem are you solving?’”
Add to that: How big of a problem is it? A $100 billion problem? A $1 billion problem? Or a $100 million problem? The answer changes your decision-making on financing and a bunch of other mission-critical issues, Dr. Nagda said
“Have you validated that this is a real problem?” he said, adding that the solution might not be what you assume it is. “We’re fixers. As a doctor, you don’t fall in love with the cancer, of course, but you may fall in love with the surgical approach. So, walk me through: What problem are you solving? Customers need to know that you feel what they feel.”
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