How ZERO Is Making $0 Out-of-Pocket Healthcare the Norm in Tulsa

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Meet Jim Millaway, founder of ZERO, a Tulsa-based incubator company at Gradient that's on a mission to make $0 out-of-pocket healthcare the norm instead of the exception.

Medical bills are one of the few things almost everyone in America can agree they hate, and Millaway has spent nearly a decade trying to fix that. ZERO partners directly with healthcare providers to negotiate costs up front, so members know exactly what they'll pay long before a bill ever shows up. Below is a look at how Millaway thinks about healthcare, community, and building a company from the ground up in Tulsa. Here's his story, in his own words.

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What's actually broken about how healthcare is priced today?

"Most people assume the price they're charged reflects the actual cost of their care," Millaway says. "It usually doesn't. There's a massive gap between what a procedure actually costs and what gets billed, and that gap is where a lot of financial pain for families comes from."

That gap is exactly what ZERO was built to close. Rather than leaving Members to negotiate or dispute bills after the fact, ZERO negotiates directly with providers up front, so the price is settled before care ever happens.

Why do you keep building ZERO, year after year?

Millaway keeps at it, and he doesn't point to revenue. He points to the Members who finally scheduled a procedure they'd been putting off for years, simply because the fear of the bill was gone. "That fear is real, and it's completely unnecessary," he says. "When someone tells us they can finally get the surgery or the physical therapy they needed without worrying about a bill showing up later, that's the whole reason ZERO exists."

Why build a healthcare company in Tulsa instead of a bigger market?

"Tulsa made sense because of what has been building here over the last several years," Millaway says. "This city made a real bet on becoming a tech hub, not just an energy town, and that bet is paying off. Gradient has been a big part of that."

ZERO is an incubator company at Gradient, Tulsa's dedicated space for founders, and Millaway says that access to community was something money couldn't buy on its own. "Having a dedicated space built for founders, with the density of other builders, mentors, and investors in one place, gave us something you cannot manufacture on your own. It is hard to build a company in isolation. Gradient gave us community."

How has the broader Tulsa ecosystem shaped ZERO's growth?

"The broader Tulsa tech ecosystem has been just as important," Millaway says. "Between the capital sources here and the sheer willingness of this city to champion its own founders, we found the kind of support system that usually only exists in much larger markets."

"Tulsa is proving you do not have to be in Austin or the Bay Area to build something real. You just need a city that is willing to bet on you early, and Tulsa has done that for us."

What's next for ZERO?

Looking five years out, Millaway's goal is simple: make $0 out-of-pocket care the expectation, not the exception, for how healthcare is priced in this country. ZERO is currently working with employers across the country while keeping its headquarters in Tulsa.

Learn more about ZERO at zero.health , and learn more about the Gradient's incubator community HERE.

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