About Us
Greg Mellinger and Gene Petrie discovered they were experiencing the same crisis—the high costs of healthcare—from two different perspectives, and realized it wasn't a pretty picture from either vantage point.
Sleepless in Chicago
As a 25-year veteran in the insurance industry, Greg has watched countless individuals live through the nightmare of our current healthcare system. He's seen families with good health insurance plans ravaged financially by catastrophic health crises and unrelenting medical bills, and others who struggled with recurring out-of-pocket costs. Mellinger originally chose a career in insurance because he wanted to help people secure their financial future. Instead, he watched helplessly as families compromised long-term financial stability to pay outrageous medical costs. These stories kept Mellinger up at nigh, as he contemplated possible solutions to this ubiquitous problem.
Walking a tightrope
Across town, Gene Petrie was living the same nightmare as a business owner. Petrie founded a software firm and eventually grew to more than 1,000 employees. Like other business owners, he needed to attract and retain good employees to compete. In a competitive market, benefits such as health insurance can make the difference between attracting a good employee and an outstanding one. Petrie was continually in a precarious position as he tried to provide good, affordable healthcare benefits while keeping his company profitable.
Pioneering spirits prevailed
The two executives put their heads together and realized they could leverage their collective experiences and expertise and make a difference. Together they created the Zedical program with two overarching goals in mind:
- Help fill the gap between insurance and non-qualifying medical costs, such as deductibles and co-payments, and
- Provide access to quality healthcare for everyone.
In choosing a name for their new company, Mellinger and Petrie knew they wanted something short, pithy and unique. They were drawn to the mental images that words such as zest and zing conjured in their minds, and the way they implied vitality. So, they invented their own word and launched the Zedical Card, a healthcare gift card.