Little kids get a lollipop for going to the doctor — shouldn’t grown-ups also get a little treat for staying on top of their health?
That’s the concept behind a new health platform and clinic launching in New York City this month: Get the tedious checkups done, stay active and eat healthy — and get rewarded with beauty and wellness treatments.
“When it comes to health care, my patients never know when they got their last cholesterol screening, they never know what their blood pressure is, they don’t know when they last got their A1C checked,” Yunara Life founder Erika Chen told The Post.
“Yet they never miss their Botox appointments, they never miss their facials, they never miss their hair loss treatments.”
Better on the inside — and better on the outside
Chen is a nurse practitioner who previously worked for One Medical, practiced emergency medicine, and owned a med spa. She saw people get endless aesthetic treatments like filler and cosmetic surgery, but never reached a point where they were satisfied.
“External stuff can only make people feel so good about themselves,” she said. “If you’re not happy and you’re not healthy, you’re never going to feel beautiful … And if you are really happy and healthy, there is like this natural glow about you that makes you beautiful, regardless of what you look like.”
Yunara Life, a clinic with app-based health tracking, takes the inside-out approach to a new level. Chen says they already have several hundred people on the waitlist ahead of their planned opening in mid-July.
She broke down how her company hopes to “gamify” health with real rewards like facials and massages to motivate more people to prioritize their overall wellbeing.
How does it work?
To start, clients complete an extensive questionnaire about their medical and family history as well as lifestyle, from their social life to substance use and daily schedule. They then visit the clinic for exams ranging from bloodwork to trainer-led fitness evaluations and 3D body scans.
With all that data, Yunara Life can identify patterns and risk factors, as well as offer recommendations for nutrition, fitness, sleep and stress regulation.
Chen stresses that intervention with lifestyle medicine could affect up to 80% of chronic diseases like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and obesity.
These changes begin with small improvements, like walking a bit more every day or going to bed earlier “so that it doesn’t feel so big, and that will compound over time to really improve people’s health,” Chen explained.
That’s where the perks come in. Work out, sleep enough, eat well — you earn points. Pap smears, flu vaccines and colonoscopies also rack up points.
If biomarkers in blood tests, mental health scores and other screenings improve, points go up. Clients can spend these points on wellness treatments like Botox, microneedling and massages.
“It makes it a lot more fun,” Chen said. “We’ve gamified almost everything else, but we haven’t gamified our health.”
The new 6,000-square-foot Gramercy clinic has two wings: one for health care and one for self-care.
In addition to incentivizing people to stay healthy to get the perks, those perks also get patients in the door for more healthy behaviors.
Chen puts it this way: Imagine your good habits earned you some cupping on a massage. You visit for your treatment, and the staff at Yunara remind you that your cholesterol was high on your last visit. You’re already there, so you may as well get it re-checked.
What does it cost?
Memberships are $199 a month and include app access, a monthly wellness service, and discounted pricing on longevity plans, including peptides, weight loss or hormone packages.
If you’re just interested in a single service, Yunara Life also offers it a la carte.
On the healthcare side, they offer DEXA scans with bone density and vertebral fracture assessment, VO2 max testing, resting metabolic rate (RMR) testing, advanced blood biomarkers, movement and exercise physiology analyses, body composition tracking, and physician-guided longevity care pathways.
There’s also GLP-1–based weight management, hormone optimization, and select peptide treatments.
On the self-care side, they offer services like Botox, microneedling (with a serum from Korea that’s exclusive to Yunara in the US), chemical peels, stem cell facials, massage therapy, cupping, gua sha, hair restoration and head spa treatments.
Standing out
There are a number of preventative health and longevity clinics around the city using cutting edge tech to cater to optimizers with cash to spend.
Chen hopes to differentiate Yunara Life from competitors with honesty and a staff of qualified medical professionals.
“We want to be very, very transparent with people. For example, peptides are all the rage right now, but we want people to know what the evidence shows and what it doesn’t show,” she said. “We want to help you make an informed decision, as opposed to just kind of selling people stuff because it makes money.”
Also, she says Yunara Life is one of the only ones focused on behavior change rather than treatments.
“If you don’t have your foundation right, none of the things you do, no supplements you take, no peptides you take, no plasmapheresis you do, is going to improve your health or longevity,” she said.
“The biggest component is what so many of these places are missing. They’re selling all these products for money, and they’re selling a lot of hype, but we’re trying to be really grounded in what we know actually moves the needle for people’s health and longevity.”
