Physician Builder Spotlight: Tod Stillson

We’re shining light on MD-entrepreneurs! Each week, we feature an entrepreneurial doctor who’s building a cool product, company, or working on a big idea that you definitely want to know about. This week, meet Tod Stillson, a rural family physician and founder of ChatRx (more on the company’s mission below!). You can connect further with Tod on LinkedIn.

1. Tod, what inspired you to become a physician entrepreneur? The seed was planted over a decade ago during a rural flu outbreak in Indiana. My clinic was overwhelmed, patients were sick, phone lines were jammed, and I had no access for the people who needed it most. Yet most didn’t need to be seen in person. They just needed a trusted answer: Do I need to be seen? Can I get treated safely from home? So I created a structured, nurse-led triage protocol, rooted in history-taking and standing orders, that safely delivered care over the phone. That experience changed everything. It was efficient, compassionate, and empowering. But it was local. And temporary. But it was a seed that lay dormant until the right time came for it to grow.As I approached retirement after 30 years in my rural clinic, I was energized by the rise of telemedicine, direct-to-consumer care, and AI and began thinking about how to scale my initial idea through the creation of a medical device. I saw a way to solve the same problem, not for a single town, but for the millions of Americans who delay care for common infections due to time, cost, or access. So I created a patented, FDA-approved Software as a Medical Device (SaMD), which has become the clinical engine that powers ChatRx, my asynchronous telemedicine platform.The soul of ChatRx lies in a moral desire to make care more accessible, personal, and just. This isn’t a departure from my identity as a physician. It’s a fulfillment of it. Entrepreneurship has given me the freedom to solve problems I care deeply about, to innovate ethically, and to design systems that scale compassion, not bureaucracy. That’s why I became a physician entrepreneur.

2. Tell us what your company does and what problem you're trying to solve. ChatRx is a chat-based telemedicine platform designed to solve one simple but stubborn problem: getting fast, affordable, and safe treatment for common infections to everyone everywhere. We treat 37 well-defined acute infections using a free AI-powered symptom checker that anyone in the world can access for free. If the case qualifies and no red flags are triggered, the patient can initiate treatment for just $20, no appointments, no waiting rooms, no insurance needed. All treatment decisions are asynchronously reviewed and signed by a licensed physician (me). We built ChatRx to scale the kind of care a trusted doctor would offer a friend or neighbor, but through ethical, structured technology.This isn’t a generic chatbot. Our platform is:

- Physician-developed: Every condition is guided by structured JSON logic.

- Narrow and safe: We only treat clearly defined, low-risk conditions.

- Morally driven: Rooted in The Physicians’ Charter for Responsible AI.

- Accessible by design: Serving the people traditional care often overlooks: rural families, shift workers, busy professionals, and the uninsured.

We call this “compassion at scale” and it’s already changing lives.

Here’s what it looks like in action:

A Day in the Life of a ChatRx Patient

Patient time saved: ~6 hours
Patient money saved: ~$150
Patient stress avoided: high
Physician access expanded: dramatically

ChatRx isn’t just a tool; it’s a moral ambition to make healthcare feel like care again. Our ChatRx core values of compassion, equity, integrity, and innovation guide every decision. We don’t upsell, mine data, or replace physicians. We scale their empathy, expertise, and ethical judgment using AI as a co-pilot, not a substitute. I believe this is what medicine needs right now: technology with a soul, and that’s what we’ve built.

3. What’s your advice to anyone who’s thinking about entrepreneurship or pursuing a nontraditional career in medicine? Medicine trains us to follow guidelines; entrepreneurship asks us to question them. Over 10 years ago, I transitioned to independence in the marketplace. This resulted in the renewal of my professional autonomy and inspiration to create multiple businesses. In turn, this led me to share my experiences and launch the Physician Entrepreneur Academy (PEA-SimpliMD) because I saw far too many physicians stuck in burnout, bureaucracy, and careers that no longer reflected their original calling. I wanted to create a space and community where doctors could learn how to turn their expertise into micro-businesses and reclaim their autonomy. If you're a physician considering stepping outside the traditional W-2 employment model, here’s my advice:

**Say yes to self-employment.** You don’t need an MBA, you need the courage to trust your instincts and the humility to keep learning.

**Start small.** The micro-business model I teach at PEA-SimpliMD empowers physicians to build their professional lives on their own terms, whether through job stacking, a cash-pay niche clinic, a digital product, or a diversified 1099 career.

**Build with purpose.** Don’t chase disruption for its own sake. Solve a real problem you’ve lived and understand intimately.

**Above all build your work around your values** not just your income. That’s what makes entrepreneurship sustainable and joyful.

4. What’s one lesson you’ve learned since building your company that wasn’t obvious to you before? In a crowded health tech landscape, clarity of focus beats complexity of features. The lesson? Know your edge and go deep, not wide. ChatRx doesn’t try to be everything to everyone. We’ve built a narrow, physician-validated system that treats 37 common infections with unrivaled speed, safety, and affordability. That specificity is our competitive advantage. And we double down on it by following a Go-Giver philosophy, delivering more value than we take in payment:

- We offer a free global symptom checker.

- We charge just $20 for treatment.

- We empower patients to avoid unnecessary visits and lost income.

- We source the lowest-cost local prescription

- We provide work and school notes

- We support families being treated at no extra cost

- We route every case through a licensed physician, not a black-box bot.

We’re not just scaling a product, we’re scaling trust. That’s our differentiator in a world of impersonal AI and transactional care. Our moral ambition is to use AI as a force multiplier to democratize care, not to disrupt medicine, but to redeem it.

Connect With Tod on LinkedIn and learn more about his company here.