Meet Derrick L. Miles: Founder/CEO of CourMed

We had the good fortune of connecting with Derrick L. Miles and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Derrick L., we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
As a former hospital executive I experienced a tremendous amount of early success on the operational side of the business (departmental turnarounds, becoming CEO of a specialty hospital at age 31 and being part of teams that financially transformed poorly performing hospitals.) However, I constantly struggled to get innovative projects approved. The feedback was always “that innovation may work in the general public, but it won’t work for healthcare.” Those failed attempts to innovate within a healthcare system fueled my desire to start my own business outside of the healthcare system.

What should our readers know about your business?
We are most encouraged by the fact that CourMed receives 99.9% 5-STAR reviews from patients for our concierge delivery service for healthcare products (prescriptions, high-end vitamins, high-end supplements, home medical suppliers, CBD Oil, PPE, eyewear, etc). Everyone at the beginning told us that crowdsourced deliveries would never work for healthcare. However, after visiting my concierge physician who referred me to a concierge pharmacist who said “if you make two changes you could deliver prescriptions.” Six months later we were the only delivery platform invited to McKesson’s national conference for independent pharmacies for the positive impact we were making at their Health Mart Pharmacy locations. There are only four companies with a trillion dollar market cap and two of them (Google and Microsoft) have made significant investments into the CourMed platform. What makes us of interest to major corporations and what sets us apart is that we continue to innovate and offer solutions in many verticals to provide a concierge level experience for patients. At the end of the day, CourMed is in the business of encouraging people. Most people don’t communicate in the area in their life where they need a word of encouragement. Therefore, on a daily basis CourMed sends thousands of messages to patients and drivers via SMS messages, delivery labels and Zelle payments for them to “Be enCOURaged.”

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
A lot has changed since COVID as I find myself working/entertaining from home the lion’s share of the time. I have a healthy amount of respect for the pandemic and avoid most interactions with other humans outside of my immediate family. As of now, I live vicariously through Modern Luxury Miami magazine. Post the pandemic I’m looking forward to the opening of Monaco Yacht Club and Residencies.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

Joel Wiggins deserves some credit. https://digital.modernluxury.com/publication/?m=3620&i=685185&p=158. 

I remember meeting Joel like it was yesterday. I’m sitting in my corner office as a young healthcare executive and the phone rings from a number I don’t recognize. I pick it up anyway and the gentleman says “My name is Joel Wiggins and we have a mutual friend that suggested that we have a conversation.” As I’m explaining who I am and what I do for the organization he stops me in mid sentence and says “You are not going to be there much longer!” I heard what he said, but I asked him to say that again, because I had been feeling for years that I was being called to do something else. I hadn’t made the move yet, because I was afraid to take the leap. The call from Joel validated that my corporate career was over and I finally got the courage to step out on faith to become an owner.

Images:
https://www.courmed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Derrick-Miles-Different.png

https://www.courmed.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Derrick-Miles-Modern-Man.jpg

Website: https://CourMed.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courmed/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/courmed
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CourMed
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CourMedHealth
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXAUV88nATfP0BVA_qMH91w
Other: https://CourMed.com/summary