214: Turning Lived Experience Into Better Care: The FoXX Health Story
In this episode of The Health Disparities Podcast, host Desiree Clemons talks with Maria Haugen, Founder and CEO of FoXX Health.
After experiencing months of dismissed symptoms, delayed testing, and uncertainty, Maria created FoXX—a daily health companion designed to help women track symptoms, prepare for appointments, and advocate for better care. Her story reflects a reality many women face in healthcare, and FoXX was built to ensure no woman has to wait months to be heard.
Maria shares how her personal health scare became the catalyst for a tool that turns lived experience into clarity, confidence, and actionable data. She explains the gaps she encountered—missed warning signs, lack of preparation tools, and the emotional toll of not being believed—and how those moments shaped the core features of FoXX from day one.
Desiree and Maria explore FoXX Health’s approach and discuss the broader landscape of women’s health, including:
- How daily symptom tracking helps women communicate more effectively with clinicians
- The importance of clinical credibility, privacy, and safety in digital health tools
- Why women’s health is often treated as “niche,” and how that leads to worse outcomes
- What developments give Maria hope for progress in women’s health equity
- Lessons from fundraising and the challenges of building consumer‑focused health technology
Maria also reflects on earning third place at Movement Is Life’s 2025 PowerHER Pitch Competition—a recognition of her vision, momentum, and commitment to improving women’s health experiences.
This episode offers insights for anyone working in women’s health, digital health innovation, patient advocacy, community health, or health equity.
Maria Haugen
So often women’s health is our reproductive health and our ignoring like the rest of our body. Yeah. So that was really an inflection point. You know, a lot of people talk about post traumatic stress from going to the doctor, that happening, but then I took that and turned it into post traumatic growth and what needs to happen now. And I took two years after that, talking to other patients and doctors and understanding the gaps, and that led me to FoXX doctors feel like patients come in sometimes and aren’t telling the full story. We’re stressed out. We don’t have a lot of time with them, and doctors, I believe, want to help us. FoXX doesn’t villainize the doctor.
We say, how can we show up better to help you? Help us. And that’s really the mission of FoXX and why I built it.
Desiree Clemons
You’re listening to the health disparities podcast from movement is life. I’m Desiree Clements, Director of Strategy and organizational impact. Movement is Life advances joint health and mobility for women through community programs, education and advocacy, our work is guided by collaboration, evidence based, behavior change and policy engagement principles that drive lasting community level transformation.
You’re invited to join us for movement is life 2026 annual summit in Detroit, Michigan on September 24 through the 25th for details and registration, visit movement is life community.org
Today’s guest is Maria Haugen, founder and CEO of FoXX health, Maria created FoXX after a prolonged health scare where her symptoms were dismissed, tests were delayed and diagnosis took months. That experience inspired a daily health companion that helps women track symptoms, prepare for appointments and advocate for better care. FoXX turns lived experience into clarity, confidence and actionable data so no woman has to wait to be heard at the 2025 annual summit, inaugural power her pitch competition, Maria secured third place, an impressive recognition of her vision and momentum. Maria, welcome to the health disparity podcast. Thank you for being here. We are so excited, and it’s so exciting to have you here after seeing you on stage doing your thing. So we’re going to just jump right in about your story. So tell us about that moment when you realize something had to change what happened and how it how it pushed you to build FoXX,
Maria Haugen
Absolutely well, as you mentioned, I went through my own health issue that took months of delayed diagnosis to eventually get me to my diagnosis, and just at a high level what I went through, I was having symptoms that if you were to Google them, you would be told you’re having a heart attack. And the first time it happened, I went to the emergency room because I was like, Well, I’m having a heart attack, right? And I was not. And so then being, you know, sent home, I was like, Okay, I’m not having a heart attack, but the pain is real. The pain is real, and the pain is mine, and I have pain. And upon telling doctors what it was my primary care, everything because it wasn’t a heart attack and it wasn’t showing in my heart, it was dismissed as not being a heart problem. And so the more obvious reason for women is anxiety and our hormones and you need to take an antidepressant if you don’t actually have a heart condition. And I started cold card and cold calling cardiologists myself, and finally got one. Who would you know? You’re not a referral, but I’ll take you, but you’re behind our patients who are a referral. So that took about a month and a half, and I was diagnosed with costochondritis, where, if you look it up, it’s inflammation of tissue that mimics having heart pain, chest pain, you can get shooting pain, doll pain, it hurts when you move, when you breathe. And I was living that way for six months.
Desiree Clemons
Wow, that actually sent me to the hospital myself, because I thought I was having a heart.
Maria Haugen
It happens more commonly than not. And people are just like, oh, well, now it kind of went away. And I guess if I wasn’t having a heart attack, then I guess that’s that, and that’s not what happened. And so often women’s health is our reproductive health and our bones, ignoring like the rest of our body, yeah. So that was really an inflection point. You know, a lot of people talk about post traumatic stress from going to the doctor, that happened, but then I took that and turned it into post traumatic growth. And what needs to happen now. And I took two years after that, talking to other patients and doctors and understanding the gaps, and that led me to FoXX. Doctors feel like patients come in sometimes and aren’t telling the full story. We’re stressed out. We don’t have a lot of time with them. And doctors, I believe, want to help us. FoXX doesn’t villainize the doctor. We say, how can we show up better to help you? Help us. And that’s really the mission of FoXX, and why I built it.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, I love that post traumatic stress growth. Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. So when you look back at that experience, what were the specific gaps? You kept thinking, If only I’d had this, what would have happened?
Maria Haugen
So one of those big gaps, and I think I speak for the majority of the population, is I don’t have a medical background. Yes, you go into the doctor and you’re like, This hurts. That could mean so many things, and doctors are trained on all of them, but they need more information, and so part of it was, what if I had the right language, or what if I had some sort of better understanding about what’s going on, how to explain, how to better show up? Would the doctor have been like, Oh, now that you’re explaining it this way, I understand I can get you to costochondritis faster, and that was something because I’m all about how I can show up better for myself, and that’s not meant to blame the patient. It’s really just a gap that is missing. And I think taking that approach in FoXX to be a voice for being the voice for many patients, I think, is what is going to ultimately help us really show up for the system and change it absolutely.
Desiree Clemons
Which parts of your experience did you insist had to be in the app from day one, and why were those features non-negotiable.
Maria Haugen
Yeah, so when I started FoXX, I’m a very type A personality, and I was like, checklist. We need a checklist, exactly what I need to bring to the doctor. Say to the doctor, what needs to happen after the doctor, what I need to bring up. And we did user surveys and got 1000s of people to answer these. And that was not the number one asked for feature. It was actually number two. And so I said, no matter what, I still want it in there. Because one thing that came up, even nurses have to go to the doctor, and they have to become patients. Doctors have to be patients.
And one thing that reigned true is, when you’re on the table, you’re not feeling good, you get flustered. And we’ve all had a shared experience of leaving like, Oh man, I forgot that.
Desiree Clemons
That one thing. That one thing I should have said, maybe that could have made a difference.
Maria Haugen
Exactly. So one of the features is you can not only take all of your symptoms and run them through and get tailored questions for your doctor, but you can also add your own so while you’re preparing for an appointment, you can put, oh yeah, I want to make sure I say this. I want to make sure I bring this up, and you can go through that list. The doctor has a short amount of time with you, and that’s because of all the pressure they’re already under with the system. So how to make sure we’re making the most of the time for you, and that the doctor knows what’s going on right when you get in the room?
Desiree Clemons
So with that, walk me through what a new user actually does in FoXX, from the first tab to preparing for a doctor’s vision. Let me say I downloaded it myself, and the purple taps, yes, that was it’s it’s very it draws me in. The questions were very clear. Tapping through like you said, I loved it from a user standpoint, but you talk about it from your perspective.
Maria Haugen
I love to hear that. I truly do, especially because we’re an MVP right now, we have our core feature out of symptom tracking, and we’re continuing to evolve. So right now, you download FoXX, and you go through your onboarding, we want to know why you’re here. You know what age range you’re in, what you’re interested in, and once you get to your homepage and your profile is set, you can log a symptom, or you can say, I feel good. No symptoms today. The reason why is because no symptoms are still data. That means it’s a good day. And then once you do select I have a symptom, you can go one of two ways. You can search for it, and that pulls up our database of symptoms that we built with clinicians. We have three medical licenses with the US, National Library of Medicine, NIH and snowman International, pulling out symptoms for women, or we’ve built a clickable body, so that way you can just say the pain is happening right here, and we can pull out symptoms that would be associated with that part of your body. And that really helps for how women think differently, how we feel pain differently, and then ultimately you go through you can tell. Use the severity. What causes the pain? Does movement cause it to stand up? Did it come on suddenly? Or was it gradual? And we can help add more color to the story of your symptoms. Once you’ve logged that and you have logged symptoms for 30 days, that’s when your graph appears and you start getting symptom insights. You can start looking at the correlation between your symptoms, looking how often you said you had a headache, and that’s really important, because you want to see how your symptoms are related. Women’s Health is so siloed deeply into just being reproductive. And of course, there are companies doing more than that, but we really want to aim for women’s health as full body health. Women’s Health is just health, and we need a platform that focuses on health in general for women.
Desiree Clemons
I couldn’t agree more. How does daily tracking in the app make conversations with doctors easier? I know that you talked about this a little bit, but I’m sure there’s ways that in the app it makes it more productive. Can you give an example?
Maria Haugen
So in our app, when you go in and you log a symptom, one of the key pieces that we came up with with clinicians is talking about that symptom. So looking at a symptom in the app, we ask, how did the symptom begin? It came on, suddenly. It built up gradually. I’m not sure, or can’t remember, you can put in here the severity and the frequency, and then you can put is the pain relieved by activity? Is the pain worse at night, worse with movement? What’s really important here, and how this helps your doctor, is all of these questions are important to understanding which way, which direction they need to go. So when I think of it for chest pain for myself, understanding those questions, could have helped lead down the route, okay, this is leaning to a heart issue versus that inflammation of cartilage, and maybe this is leaning towards costochondritis, helping the clinician get to that diagnosis faster and reduce misdiagnosis. Misdiagnosis is our goal, which is why building this with clinicians was so important to us.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, I was going to say the question seems spot on. I was like, This is good, like you said, with talking with the clinicians and clinical credibility. So how did you bring clinicians into the process so that the apps, guidance feels medically sound and trustworthy, like what was that process like?
Maria Haugen
So building FoXX, we wanted to be a community effort. One thing about FoXX and the problem we’re trying to solve is we don’t have to tell women the problem we’re trying to solve. We know it’s a problem. So we were able to build a community. We have an unofficial Advisory Committee of 100 women, a little more than that, who went through two closed betas, they did our user survey, we did focus groups, we have feedback loops, we have a Slack channel. But of that, 100 women, 30 of them are around. 30 of them are active clinicians, practicing and then we have a medical arm, where we do medical focus groups, where we talk to them about what intake actually looks like, what would cause them to change their opinion of a symptom based on what the patient can tell them. So we involve them in the conversation of creating what you see in the app. In addition to that, we have a nurse practitioner and an MD, both women on our advisory board who are helping us look at the big picture. What does this actually look like? Because doctors hate when you come in, why Google my symptoms? What we’re presenting, we’re saying I’ve tracked my symptoms, and last month, here’s what I can tell you, that historical data is so important for doctors to get all of that information, because I truly believe they want to help.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, absolutely. So people worry about the health data part of it. How do you keep users’ information safe?
Maria Haugen
So when you sign up, your user information is scrambled on our back end, so we cannot look at your personal information. All we can really do is delete your profile. If you ask us to, we do not store that information attached to your user. So for example, signing up with your username and password is what matters to us, and you can use that in the den. It can be as anonymous or as personal as you decide for it
Desiree Clemons
to be, yeah, that’s good, because the world we live in today, you know, it’s a lot of things going on, so we just want to make sure people, they’re putting that things in and that’s vulnerable to them, that they’re being protected. So how do you prevent the app from becoming a substitute for care?
Maria Haugen
One thing that we want FoXX to be is not a substitute for care, but a way to get better care. Kind of an unavoidable piece of the puzzle. We want a woman who goes to their doctor who doesn’t have FoXX to be talking, and by the end of the appointment, the doctor says, For your next appointment, I really. I recommend you download FoXX, right? That would help understand your symptoms better. We can look at it historically, so that way they can listen to what they’re already asking you to do. One of the most common things the doctor says when you go in with general symptoms, general pain is, why don’t you go home, write down what’s going on, and if the problem is still there, come back in six weeks. Or if something changes, let me know. This helps you go in already with that information. So we do not see this as a substitute for care. We see this as a necessary step towards putting the patient back at the center of their own care.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, so they have the tools that they need and feel confident going into their appointments, right? So you said Women’s Health is often treated like a niche. How does that attitude show up in real world care and lead to worse outcomes?
Maria Haugen
A loaded question so many ways. You know, there are, there are pretty obvious statistics out there. You know, women weren’t included in clinical trials until the late 1900s and women are over 51% of the population. And yet, women’s health doesn’t, isn’t health health is Men’s Health, and then women’s health, which is a very unique identifier. We just started understanding endometriosis, PCOS, and it’s all of the little pieces, once you start putting them together, you get this bigger picture that health is already such a monstrosity of an industry, right? And there’s so many broken pieces of the system. Women’s Health is not only broken in that same system, but it’s underfunded. It’s under research. We haven’t been put at the forefront in a very long time. So what we want to do is not reinvent the wheel, but give women that ownership back to really start changing their own health journey through the ownership of their own health.
Desiree Clemons
I mean, to me, it seems like we’re slowly baby stepping, you know, our way, getting our way, getting our momentum to focus on women’s health, which is amazing. What developments make you optimistic about progress in women’s health right now?
Maria Haugen
Developments that make me optimistic? Well, FoXX, but outside of that, there’s definitely been conversations about more money going towards women’s health, a lot of grants. There’s been a lot of foundations that have been made. I think that’s how it starts, is identifying the problem. We all know it’s a problem, and we’re starting to see it shifting into that next area. So now we know it’s a problem. We know. So all the companies are starting, and we’re all racing to it. And I think that’s a huge development, as people are now addressing the problem that we have identified. So it’s been really exciting to see I play in a competitive space. But one thing is for sure that all of us are working towards the same goal, which is healthier women, better outcomes for women, and a better system of support for women.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, you’re definitely right there in the forefront, doing what you need to do, to pioneer the way so that we could get better care all the way around. So women like me, I just want to say, appreciate women like you. Let’s just go back a step. Let’s go back to you won third place at the 2025 annual summit, but being consumer focused can be a tough sell to traditional investors. What lessons from fundraising surprised you the most?
Maria Haugen
Oh, lessons from fundraising have learned a lot. Give me your top Yeah, I would say my top lesson is, even if the problem is there, the money also has to be there. Investors invest for the return, and that is going to consumers. Your return is normally smaller. Being a mobile app, it’s smaller than that. So yes, we’re addressing the problem. They do not deny the problem, but they aren’t sold yet on how much money this will make them. So that was definitely a big lesson. I want FoXX to be accessible, affordable, and in the communities. Really make a change sometimes being community driven, women driven. It’s not as profitable as big money suggests, right?
Desiree Clemons
So, like we talked about the 2025, annual summit, we’re back there. How did you find us? You placed? What’s happened since then? Absolutely.
Maria Haugen
So I actually sent the movement’s life conference to me with the pitch competition. And I had been looking for pitch competitions to go to, because that’s not necessarily a traditional form of fundraising, right? I was like, Okay, I need to think outside the box, and I’m comfortable speaking. I know we have. Compelling story. And I looked into the conference and was like, this would be great, because it’s not women’s health focus, it’s health and it’s moving it forward and looking at the pow-her pitch. I was like, that brings the woman element into it. So I was like, okay, the company’s position. Well, I’m positioned. Well, the mission is there, I’m going to apply.
I was absolutely thrilled when I got put through as a finalist. And I know I looked up the other companies. I was like, I have my work cut out for me, because all of these are pretty fantastic. So at that same time, I was speaking to other angel investors. I let them know that I had this opportunity to pitch, and one of them put a really interesting proposition to me, and they said, If you place at that competition, we will invest as an angel. No pressure, no pressure. Okay, so I, you know, went and it was great, and I was able to listen to other speakers and really understand not only about health in general, but health and communities and infrastructures of health and how it really is, you know, a broad problem that is so specific, because we’re talking about people and lives and health. So then after I placed third, the first email I sent was that angel investor, and the money hit my bank from the pitch competition one week, and the angel investor the next. And so that was a pretty you, a pretty great end to a pretty great event.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, we’re so happy to hear that. And that was the goal to get people like you and your business the platform you need to take the next step in women’s health. So we’re so happy to hear that. So let’s talk about your impact and events and things that you have coming up. So what are FoXX happy hours? And how do you help build community and awareness? How can listeners join in?
Maria Haugen
So we have something called yappy hours. And these yappy hours are where we invite women who are a part of our community in some way. We’ve had advisors. We’ve had advisory committee members. We also have a student advisory committee. So we have one tonight, actually, where one of the students, who’s a recent MBA grad, is coming on to talk about Hormonal Health in women, something she’s very passionate about. And what we want to do with FoXX is really amplify our own community. One of the core features in FoXX is our community den. It follows a Reddit style model. You can join different dens that are like subreddits for different types of women’s health, anything from maternal health, reproductive health to bone health, heart health, general health, sexual health, and really curate your own community of women. But we also like to do that live. We want to make sure that we are truly not only saying what we’re going to do, but doing what we’re saying, and that is fostering a community of women who feel comfortable talking about their health and who are honest about what’s going on.
Desiree Clemons
And remind me, how can listeners join in?
Maria Haugen
So our Yappy hours, what we do is we post it on LinkedIn and on our socials, and there’s an Eventbrite, and you just register. It’s free, and we jump on video, and you can interact. You can ask questions in the chat. You can listen to it recorded, and it’s free again, free. So users can go and register, find us on any of our FoXX social medias and just register through Eventbrite.
Desiree Clemons
We love free events, especially that’s so informative, right? What’s one simple thing clinicians can start doing tomorrow to make sure women’s symptoms are taken seriously. In your opinion?
Maria Haugen
In my opinion, one thing that clinicians can do starting tomorrow to better take women seriously, would be helping women better describe their symptoms. And what I mean by that is, as a patient, first, without formal medical training, there’s a lot I don’t know the clinicians are the experts, but that means that there’s also a gap in how we communicate to one another. So I think that it would be really helpful for doctors, maybe who are specialized, to say, here are some core symptoms that you should look for, or the way you describe them. This helps me, and I think really being honest and transparent about what they would need for you to show up would be really helpful. All too often, we just expect patients to come in and solve all the problems, but it just doesn’t work like that. Every single person is unique and what they’re experiencing, and I think that would be really helpful.
Desiree Clemons
Yeah, I agree. And for the listeners at home, what’s one concrete step they can take right now to support FoXX health and women’s health advocacy?
Maria Haugen
Downloading FoXX and giving us the honest feedback we are in that early stage where we’re still. Building out exactly what we want it to be and how it’s going to help. Our foundation is solid, but our future is fluid. We have ability, the ability for you to give us feedback directly in the app. We have support at FoXX email, and I welcome it. I’m building it for the women who will use it, and that is the way that they can truly support. FoXX is using it and telling me if it’s making a difference, and if it is, how so and if it’s not, what would you need to see in order for it to actually do that? I really set out to make the difference that I needed and that so many women need too.
Desiree Clemons
Absolutely so I have a question. Someone that’s busy has 10,000 things going on in this box. Send an alert to say, Hey, did you have symptoms today or not? Does it have some type of push notification function?
Maria Haugen
So right now, we’re working to incorporate notifications, but more importantly, learning to incorporate widgets so that you can just look down at your phone with no symptoms or log a symptom. Click, click, click. We want it to be an under 32nd experience, so that women can still be logging, be tracking, without having to get in, click around, click so many buttons and then get nothing from it. As well. We’re also incorporating wearables, so you’ll be able to see what your normal is and be prompted when you’re outside of that normal that would be considered a push notification. And then we can say, Hey, your heart rate is high for you know, tell us why. What other symptoms are you experiencing? And we’ll be able to start building your own story with FoXX.
Desiree Clemons
You are already thinking so far ahead.
Maria Haugen
Road maps are real. I’m telling you, we have this entire thing. I’ve thought about what 2027 looks like already, so that’s why, the more feedback we get that influences, you know, moving pieces and what comes first and what people are asking for now versus what’s a long term goal. So that’s really important.
Desiree Clemons
Well, Maria, thank you for joining us, for building a tool that helps women turn their lived experience into clearer, actionable health conversations for listeners who want to learn more or get involved, download FoXX, visit their website or check out their community events that bring us to the end of another episode of the health disparities podcast for movement. Movement is life. I’m Desiree Clemens, until next time, be safe and be well. Thank you, Maria.