Tandice Urban
My personal experience with autoimmune issues and background in health law and hospitality helps me address the challenges of the primary care system.
I am honored to have received the Health Law Award and named a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scholar by Columbia Law School, where I served as an editor for the Columbia Law Review and authored a healthcare-related note.
What inspired you to start The Lanby?
I was initially inspired to build a better hospitality experience in healthcare when I was working at a private members club in the city. At the time, I had been managing my own autoimmune condition for years, spending countless hours at the doctor's office. Being a patient felt like my part-time job, and the experience of being my own patient advocate was exhausting. When I saw how we were treating the diners at high-end restaurants, it made me think how we were sorely missing this level of personalized attention in healthcare. Patients were receiving the worst customer service across any service industry when they really deserved the best.
People typically don’t associate healthcare with good service — we’ve come to accept that this is the way things are. I was energized by the idea of creating a “dream practice”: one that set a new industry standard for what a doctor’s office could be like. What if we could make going to the doctor something people wanted to do instead of needed to do?
What part of your childhood has carried through to make you the founder you are today?
I was always obsessed with creating out-of-the-box experiences for friends and family as a child. (My Halloween parties were genuinely scary.) That obsession has carried through into why I wanted to be a founder — I take joy and pride in creating the right experience for the right situation, and being able to marry the worlds of health and hospitality through The Lanby has been so uniquely fun.
How do you draw on your education and early career to lead the movement in shaking up the health care status quo?
As a student, I was really passionate about bioethics, particularly interested in issues around patient autonomy and informed consent. At Columbia Law School, I studied health law, focusing my research on the legal considerations for gene modification. Consistently taking the “patient lens” during that time played deeply into my motivation to build patient-centric healthcare.
Name 3 things that you would change about the healthcare system
Broadly speaking, the thing I would change about the traditional doctor’s office experience is actually turning it into an experience, which in turn encourages patients to become more engaged with their health (not just when they’re sick). That means reimagining every touchpoint from the “patient-as-consumer” perspective. Just to name a few:
- Follow the golden rule: We talk to patients the way we actually want to be talked to as patients.
- Surprise and delight: How can we go out of our way to make a doctor’s visit the best part of someone’s day?
- Presentation matters: We’ve designed our office to make you wish we didn’t have such short wait times.
Tell us something that would surprise us about you?
I love solving crosswords and just recently finished up a crossword construction class. I also enjoy doing yoga, cooking any Smitten Kitchen recipe, reading (always have one fiction and one non-fiction in progress), and trying new restaurants in the city. My New Year's resolution is to learn a magic trick.
What is The Lanby?
The Lanby offers a unique primary care membership for those who want more. Our approach is integrative, customized, and centered around the patient. With a dedicated care team including a Lead Physician, Wellness Advisor, and Concierge Manager, we cover medicine, wellness, and coordination. Membership benefits include in-person and virtual visits, personalized care plans, fast access to trusted referrals, on-site lab work, curated programming, and more.