At startup Zócalo Health, founders Erik Cardenas and Mariza Hardin set out to build a health care model with their families in mind.
Growing up, Cardenas remembered his parents discussing who could afford to take a day off work to bring him to the doctor — and how they would make up for the lost income that week. At his first visit to a pediatrician's office with an aquarium and Highlights magazine, his mom thought she had to pay for the coffee.
Hardin remembers, as a child, helping her parents fill out Medicaid forms and her grandparents complete Medicare forms. As an adult, she found she was still doing the same. While working at Amazon Care, the company's soon-to-be-shuttered health care service, she remembers thinking: "What if Mom could also experience this concierge-like service?"
