ChatRx charges nothing to find out what’s wrong, and $25 if a physician can treat it. A little over a year in, the model is spreading through pharmacies, schools and employers across the Midwest.
Every urgent care in America works the same way. You pay to walk in. Then somebody tells you whether they can help.
ChatRx flipped the order. The symptom check is free, and you pay $25 only if a physician can treat what you have and you say yes to treatment. If they can’t help, nobody pays anything.
It sounds like a small change. For a family deciding whether a fever is worth a $200 trip, it’s the whole decision.
A doctor who watched people skip care
ChatRx was built by Dr. Tod Stillson, who practiced family medicine in rural northern Indiana for thirty years. Plymouth, the company’s home, has about 10,000 people. This year the local paper named him Marshall County’s top physician.
Over those thirty years he saw the same pattern again and again. A caregiver would drive 45 minutes at night for a simple infection, or a factory worker would ride out a UTI for a week because a day off meant lost wages. Meanwhile the ER kept filling up with problems that never needed an ER, since it was the only door still open after dark.
The medicine is easy. Getting access to it? That’s the hard part.
Dr. Tod Stillson, Founder and CEO, ChatRx
How it works
A patient opens chatrx.md on any phone and describes what’s going on in a private chat. No app download, no video call. It takes about five minutes.
A physician from the ChatRx Medical Group reviews every case. If it’s one of the 40+ common conditions ChatRx treats, the prescription goes to the patient’s local pharmacy, and a work or school note comes with the $25 visit. Red-flag cases get pointed to the ER right away.
Start to finish, most visits take under ten minutes, any hour of the day.
Built to healthcare’s rules first
Plenty of health startups grow first and do the paperwork later. ChatRx did it the other way around.
The software was registered with the FDA in December 2024 as a Class I Software as a Medical Device. ChatRx earned LegitScript certification at merchant level, which is the standard ad platforms and payment processors look for before they’ll work with a healthcare company. It’s HIPAA compliant. And the clinical calls are made by licensed physicians, never by the software.
The numbers so far
ChatRx launched in 2025 with no marketing budget. Word of mouth in Plymouth did most of the early work, then local pharmacies started telling their customers about it.
7,800+
Assessments
8x
Growth in monthly visits
~28%
Of patients come back
15
Pharmacy partners
That repeat number is the one worth staring at. Nobody gets points for coming back to ChatRx. More than one patient in four returns anyway, because the first visit worked and didn’t cost much.
Sponsored
ChatRx is raising capital through Regulation Crowdfunding.
Everyday investors can own a piece of the company behind $25 urgent care. Learn more about the opportunity.
Growing through Main Street
Most health apps try to buy their way into people’s phones with ads. ChatRx is getting in through the places people already trust.
Fifteen independent pharmacies across Indiana, Illinois and Michigan now point customers to ChatRx, including the eight-location Williams Bros. Health Care Pharmacy network. Patients always keep free choice of pharmacy, so the referral works for everybody.
Schools came next. Seven northern Indiana school corporations, from Elkhart to Knox, share ChatRx with families. Marian University’s Plymouth campus is adding it to student health this school year. And in July, 4C Health, one of Indiana’s larger behavioral health organizations, made ChatRx available to its 500+ employees.
Each partner puts ChatRx in front of people at the moment they need it. A parent with a sick kid hears about it from the school nurse. A customer hears about it at the pharmacy counter.
What comes next
ChatRx is live in three states, and its physicians are licensed in 17. The plan is to open states one at a time as patient volume justifies it, starting with Midwest neighbors like Ohio and Wisconsin, where patients look a lot like the ones it already serves.
Family memberships are on the way too, and employers are starting to pay for ChatRx directly so their people don’t have to. None of that is guaranteed. The core idea isn’t going anywhere, though: find out for free, pay $25 if a doctor can help.
Healthcare did not break because medicine failed. It broke because access failed.
Dr. Tod Stillson
Feeling sick right now?
Start a free symptom check on any phone. It takes about five minutes, and you pay $25 only if a physician with the ChatRx Medical Group can treat it.
Investment Opportunity
Think care should cost less? So do we.
ChatRx is raising capital through Regulation Crowdfunding, open to everyday investors. See the details before you decide.
