In episode 37 of Built by Margin, Laurie Chen speaks with Rafael Fernandes, Co-Founder and CEO of Compass Health, a membership-based healthcare company launching in Tampa, Florida. Rafael shares how his background in operations, supply chain, and large-scale corporate growth shaped his leap into entrepreneurship, and how the Duke Fuqua network helped him move from idea to execution. 

Rafael explains the core problem Compass Health is solving: healthcare access is slow, fragmented, and difficult for patients to navigate. Compass Health was built around four major pain points — access, coordination, navigation, and trust — with a model designed to connect patients to best-in-class specialists within three to five business days while providing high-touch care coordination throughout the process. 

The conversation also explores how AI is changing healthcare and startup operations. Rafael discusses how AI can make healthcare more personal by helping patients understand their own data, while still preserving the essential role of physicians in diagnosis, treatment, and trust. 

QUOTES

• "Success for Compass Health means ensuring patients get timely access to quality care." - Rafael Fernandes
• "If you're not well, your company is not well." - Rafael Fernandes
• "It was about creating these connections and these relationships that really made me understand what exactly it is that we could build." - Rafael Fernandes

Laurie Chen

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauriechencpamba/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriechen/

Risk Worthy: https://www.riskworthy.co/

Rafael Fernandes

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecompasshealth/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelfulton/ 

The Compass Health: https://www.thecompasshealth.com/our-team