7 Startups Bringing Clarity to the Cost of Healthcare
These companies are bringing greater transparency to one of healthcare’s greatest mysteries.
No one likes to be on a wild goose chase. But historically, determining how much out-of-pocket costs you can expect from a medical event has been just that — a hoop-jumping, phone-tagging, often frantic game of Chase Down the Price. And this isn’t just a hallmark of America’s healthcare system. It’s global. People everywhere are on the hunt for price information when it comes to healthcare, yet pricing transparency remains elusive.
As StartUp Health team member Andrew Solomon writes it in his deep-dive on this topic, “Many times we think price transparency means we’re somehow cheating or getting an ‘inside scoop,’ when really, for healthcare, price transparency should be the norm.” (Read Solomon’s short essay “Vivino and Fruit Jam, and What It Can Tell Us About Price Transparency In Healthcare.”)
Thankfully, these seven startups are connecting the dots between patients, providers and payers in order to promote price transparency and ultimately deliver quality care to everyone, regardless of location or income.
emPower App
Ron Weider and Jason Pyle, co-founders of emPower App, are on a mission to universalize financial security by empowering patients to pay medical bills. For employers that offer high deductible plans, emPower provides employees liquidity to pay for medical events whenever they need coverage, lowering the cost of care, automating tax optimization, and reducing borrowing costs. The platform is part app, and part medical payment card, backed by a credit program. Unlike HSAs, emPower provides beneficiaries with low-interest loans to provide a safety net for them, and helps patients afford care when they most need it. The company developed its technology platform with a robust pipeline of early adopters including a proof-of-concept pilot with US HealthWorks. The company’s growing list of partnerships includes The Bancorp, Inc., MasterCard, and Echo.
Connect with emPower App via email.
Vivor
Ian Manners and Ben Gagosian, co-founders of Vivor, are connecting patients with the financial assistance they deserve. Vivor is a cloud-based platform that reduces a patient’s financial responsibility (and stress) by maximizing the use of co-pay assistance programs. More than a catalog of over 1,000 financial assistance resources, Vivor also supports the process of enrolling a patient into programs and securing funds. With over 15 paying provider customers — including Yale-New Haven Health, Dignity Health/Dominican Hospital, and Oncology Hematology Care — the company manages over 100,000 active patient cases per year.
Connect with Vivor via email.
Wellthie
Sally Poblete, founder and CEO of Wellthie, wants to make health insurance something everyone can understand. Wellthie offers the only national small group benefits marketplace and accompanying analytics platform that connects carriers, brokers, and small business owners nationally to bring insurance coverage to employees. Poblete’s platform is the largest aggregated insurance marketplace for small businesses, with over 13,000 products from over 300 carriers nationally, and has 2x the products on the shelf than a close competitor. With notable enterprise customers like Aflac, UnitedHealthcare, Centene, Teladoc, Oscar, Shelterpoint, IHC Group, and Fidelis Care, Wellthie is well on their way to modernizing the insurance shopping experience.
Connect with Wellthie via email.
Trusty.care
Jo Schneier, founder and CEO of Trusty.care, believes every consumer of health should be able to navigate government funded healthcare “without getting a degree in Medicare.” Trusty.care taps into rich data the government makes available and feeds it into their AI-driven system to create a “diagnostic” tool for users. The platform helps users maximize the financial benefits available to them while taking into consideration their individual health needs. Think TurboTax for choosing government-sponsored health insurance. Within six weeks of launching the platform, the company had 15,000 intents to purchase.
Connect with Trusty.care via email.
Hoy Health LLC
Mario Anglada, CEO of Hoy Health, is building a future in which health consumers and their family — whether in the U.S. or abroad — can have their primary care needs met for $100 per month. Hoy Health has created a unique set of interconnected cash-pay products — HoyRX, HoyMEDS, HoyCCM, and HoyDOC — that are designed specifically for the Hispanic and medically underserved markets. All of the products are bilingual and can be accessed via a digital platform either domestically or by extended families abroad. With an established network of 62,000 pharmacy distribution points in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and a formulary of 3,500 generics (80% of all generics), Hoy Health is giving users unprecedented medication access at low prices.
Connect with Hoy Health via email.
QwikScript
Ryan Quinlan, James Richards and Jared Knable, founders of QwikScript, created the first digital marketplace for patients to purchase prescriptions with full price transparency. QwikScript is designed for any patient with or without prescription coverage. The platform allows the patient to choose the medication and price, make the purchase, and have the Rx’s delivered within 24 hours while reducing the communication needs between physicians and pharmacies. In their beta, QwikScript was able to fill and process prescriptions within a 15– 90-minute window, with zero walk-aways. This is compared to the market norm of 24–48 hours.
Connect with QwikScript via email.
To learn more about any of the companies in StartUp Health Moonshot Academy, send us an email to network@startuphealth.com, leave a question in the comments below, or reach out to us on Twitter at @ StartUpHealth.
