Ami Kumordzie is the Founder & CEO of Sika Health, where she is on a mission to reinvent the way people pay for their health, starting by enabling merchants to accept HSA and FSA funds at checkout. She is a Stanford-trained physician and former consultant at the Boston Consulting Group before becoming the Senior Manager of Strategic Innovation at BD.
We had a short interview/Q&A with Ami a short while ago and here is everything we asked and Ami’s responses to the same:
What is Sika Health, and how does it integrate with eCommerce platforms to enhance the customer experience?
Sika Health is a health commerce solution that helps merchants grow revenue by accepting HSA/FSA payments (think of us like PayPal for Health!) In technical jargon, this means we are a SIGIS-member Integrated Payment Provider that helps merchants compliantly accept HSA/FSA funds so that their customers can shop with HSA/FSA cards without worrying about purchase eligibility.
Our payment method enables eCommerce merchants to directly accept HSA/FSA payments on their website and is compatible to work with many e-commerce platforms out of the box such as Shopify and WooCommerce. We additionally offer white-glove installation for eCommerce merchants that have a custom checkout.
How did you come up with the idea behind Sika Health?
Many consumers struggle to pay for their health needs. There are 70 million people in the US that opt-in to HSA/FSA, a $150B market that once people contribute, they struggle to spend the funds and often lose it. I saw this issue firsthand when my mother lost her job during the pandemic. She had an FSA with $2,000 sitting in it set to expire at year-end, which was rapidly approaching, but she didn’t know what a broad range of products she could spend it on and struggled to navigate the logistical complexities associated with spending it.
To fully understand how to effectively use these funds, I essentially had to become a tax expert in order to help her spend the money so she didn’t lose it entirely. This event, combined with my experiences studying and consulting in healthcare, led me to fully grasp just how broken the financial side of American healthcare is. This spurred me to question why it was so hard to pay for our health, especially when there are so many products available today that help to keep us proactively healthy– eventually leading me to found Sika Health.
Can you explain the key features and benefits of Sika Health for eCommerce businesses, particularly in terms of improving conversion rates and customer satisfaction?
While many companies are having discussions about the lack of affordability in healthcare spending, most of them aren’t looking to FSA/HSA funds as a viable avenue to help democratize access to health products. Our payment facilitator enables consumer-directed healthcare spending while simultaneously helping eCommerce merchants to grow revenue through an untapped market, and eliminating the pain points associated with the purchasing process. Our team of regulatory experts partners directly with brands to ensure their products are compliant with IRS guidelines and the SIGIS eligibility standards, expanding accessibility to consumers on products they can purchase with their FSA/HSA funds.
To date, we’ve partnered with nearly 50 merchants across the health and wellness space, to offer the 70 million people with HSA/FSA accounts expanded access to spend their tax-free healthcare dollars directly at checkout on items they want, when they want, hassle-free. This allows eCommerce merchants to tap into an otherwise inaccessible market of billions of tax-free dollars that often sit in these accounts unspent.
Additionally,Sika’s transaction data reflects that customers spend 2x more and a 75% decrease in return rates with Sika Health, compared to normal credit cards which shows that customers are getting access to the health and wellness products that improve their lives. Our largest order to date made through Sika was a whopping $4K – turns out, people really want to spend their tax-free healthcare dollars.
How does Sika Health handle the necessary compliance process involved for eCommerce sites looking to process HSA/FSA cards as payment?
Compliance is the backbone of our offering. As a SIGIS member Integrated Payment Provider, we help merchants navigate the latest industry standards to ensure they have the proper certifications in place in order to accept HSA/FSA funds. This means that payments processed through Sika Health enable shoppers to spend their healthcare dollars worry-free. In the event that an HSA/FSA administrator requests additional substantiation, Sika is there to support a merchant’s customers.
How does Sika Health handle data security and privacy concerns, ensuring the protection of sensitive customer information in the eCommerce environment?
We offer a secure, PCI compliant, and fraud-secured e-commerce payment gateway so that merchants can accept HSA/FSA payments directly at the point of sale with peace of mind their transactions are safe and secure.
What types of eCommerce businesses can benefit the most from implementing Sika Health, and are there specific industries or niches where it has proven particularly effective?
Virtually any and all health and wellness businesses that sell products eligible for HSA/FSA funds can benefit from implementing Sika Health. For those with a note of medical necessity, there’s a slew of products that shoppers can buy with their HSA/FSA funds, from mattresses to skincare, supplements to fitness equipment. Our team of medical and legal experts work with the IRS and regulatory agencies to determine the eligibility of the specific products in our customer’s portfolio on an ongoing basis.
Are there any successful case studies or examples of eCommerce businesses that have seen tangible improvements in their operations and customer engagement after adopting Sika Health?
ECommerce merchants have seen huge increases in their average customer spend and decreases in return rates when integrating Sika Health. One customer in particular, a hydration therapy company, has seen that shoppers who utilize HSA/FSA funds through Sika spend more than 116% more in their baskets, compared to regular credit/debit card shoppers. This company has reported this is due to their customers considering their HSA/FSA funds as “already spent” and are therefore more likely to buy what they need, ensuring their health funds are not lost.
