These 20 Startups Are Creating New Ways to Drive Down Healthcare Costs
We’ve compiled a list of the startups in our portfolio that are innovating in the Cost to Zero Health Moonshot.
Investors, get a first look at how you can back health moonshots using StartUp Health’s new rolling impact fund, in collaboration with AngelList.
For 2021, we’re excited to introduce Moonshot Programming in which we highlight leading Health Transformers focused on our 12 Health Moonshots. This month, we’re highlighting the startups in our portfolio who are focused on driving down the cost of care in creative and revolutionary ways.
Every year, healthcare costs place a significant burden on families in the United States and are one of the greatest barriers to access to quality care. In 2021 alone, the average household spends nearly $5,000, around 8% of their average annual household spendings, on healthcare expenses. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), national health spending is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.4% for 2019–28, reaching $6.2 trillion by 2028.
At StartUp Health, we’re on a moonshot mission to drive health costs all the way down to zero. We understand that the only way that is going to be possible is for us to dismantle our understanding of health and rebuild the machine from the ground up. Below, we’ve compiled a list of the companies in our portfolio that are focused on creating new ways to drive down costs and make healthcare more accessible to everyone.
Get to know the StartUp Health companies that are innovating in the Cost to Zero Moonshot:
@Point of Care
For providers, payors, and hospital systems looking to seamlessly connect clinicians to patients at the point of care and increase engagement, compliance, and outcomes, @Point of Care is a clinical decision support tool that provides clinical knowledge support and allows patients to share data with their clinician. @Point of Care uses proprietary machine-learning algorithms, predictive and rules-based algorithms, and a specialized content management system including guidelines and clinical pathways for real-time digital publishing. It provides access to research, literature, and drug information, as well as integrates a cognitive and machine learning engine to help clinicians make decisions about treatment.
Health Transformer: Robert Stern, CEO & Founder
Aver
From their suite of purpose-built software products to their deep bench of expertise in alternative payment methods, Aver eases the transition from fee-for-service to value-based contracts. The company’s HITRUST certified platform supports payers to design and implement value-based contracts. Their platform is capable to operate directly with existing payer systems providing end-to-end program administration, including claims adjudication, reconciliation, and audit-ready reporting, and is the only technology-enabled service offering custom episode design, pricing, administration, and reporting of bundled payments.
Health Transformer: Bill Nordmark, CEO
Benjamin
Benjamin is focusing their patient-centered data platform on prescription drugs, on helping patients comparison shop their prescriptions and better manage their medications. The startup’s AI engine shops the market for prescription savings, taking into account an individual’s exact insurance coverage, their deductibles, and copays, where they live and prefer to shop, and then proactively sends alerts with up to 80% savings on out-of-pocket costs. Their team of PharmD clinicians also provides telehealth consults with members to provide medication advice and money-saving ideas that improve both their health and wealth.
Health Transformer: Jim Lewis, CEO & Founder
CoverUs
CoverUS is a Brooklyn-based personalized prescription discount tool helping Americans save up to 87% on their medications at over 67,000 pharmacies nationwide. The company offers one-stop-shopping for Americans turning to Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance plans in the wake of COVID-19, shows the price with a CoverUs discount card and ACA co-pay, and encourages people to choose the most affordable way to pay. CoverUs is accepted at thousands of independent drugstores and is constantly adding new personalized health savings and earnings tools to further deliver on their mission of health financial inclusion.
Health Transformers: Andrew Hoppin, CEO & Co-founder; Chris Sealey, President & Co-founder; and Andy Laken, EVP Tech & Product
Docola
For pharma and medical device brand teams who are looking to identify real-time healthcare provider and patient data, Docola is a communication platform that identifies a provider’s prescribing habits, builds trust in brands and products, and augments revenue streams with service-based offerings. For patients, Docola provides on-demand access to important information provided by your clinician, knowledge, and support.
Health Transformers: Eran Kabakov, CEO & Co-founder; Jonathan Cabin, MD, CMO & Co-founder; and Tomer Kabakov, CRO & Co-founder
eHealthAnalytics
eHealthAnaltics provides coordinated, comprehensive care plans for the growing senior population that can be maintained and managed by non-geriatric specialists. The company’s Comprehensive Senior Advisor™ helps provide an accurate, integrated, dynamic, easy-to-use platform that fosters collaboration and provides an interdisciplinary, comprehensive approach to the management of the wellbeing of the senior population by both geriatricians and primary care physicians.
Health Transformers: Gail Port, CEO & Co-founder; and Jacqueline Laver, CTO & Co-founder
Etyon Health
Etyon Health is a cloud-based technology and services platform that combines data integration, machine learning, and advanced analytic automation to help healthcare providers better plan, analyze, and perform. Etyon Health’s proprietary AI-assisted financial determination algorithms leverage predictive analytics from 100 million historical financial outcomes and over 10 million patient lives to more effectively scale, connect, and analyze health data simultaneously.
Health Transformers: Derek Foster, CEO & Founder; and Jake Donahue, VP of Innovation and Growth & Co-founder
Flosonics Medical
For insurers covering critically ill patients, Flosnics’ FloPatch is a portable medical device that uses ultrasound technology to enable real-time precision fluid management for physicians and nurses in the ED, OR, and ICU. The startup’s Flowatch enables real-time continuous hemodynamic monitoring and streamlines workflow to reduce the time to answer by 10x and technical proficiency requirements.
Health Transformers: Joe Eibl, PhD, CEO & Co-founder; Andrew Eibl, Director of Operations & Co-founder; and Jon-Emile Kenny, MD, CMO & Co-founder
Hindsait
For health insurance companies, benefits managers, and payment integrity organizations that need to eliminate unnecessary health services, wastage, and abuse, Hindsait’s artificial intelligence platform reduces unnecessary health services, detects human errors, biases, and anomalies by harnessing the power of AI.
Health Transformer: Pinaki Dasgupta, CEO & Founder
Inbox Health
Inbox Health delivers a personalized patient billing experience that automates patient billing engagement and provides a suite of support tools to help billing teams better manage patient needs during the billing process. The company’s platform uses proprietary algorithms tailored to each practice and patient’s individual needs. It powers intelligent, bi-directional communication between practices and patients using SMS, email, voice technology, and mail.
Health Transformers: Blake Walker, CEO & Co-founder; Simon Kaluza, CTO & Co-founder; and Charles Gamble, COO
Innovarx Global Health
For the Gambian diaspora population needing greater access to care and value-driven health solutions, Innovarx Global Health is a conglomerate of healthcare services including brick and mortar stores, an e-commerce business, a global telemedicine platform, EHR integration support, and a mobile clinical unit. The company provides tech-enabled clinical operations with the utilization of point-of-care testing and clinical infrastructure, paid subscription care plans that act as an insurance coverage plan and can be purchased globally for services provided locally, an electronic health records base, and more.
Health Transformers: Ismail Badjie, PharmD, CEO & Co-founder; Gerard Mengang, PharmD, PhD, COO & Co-founder; and Haddy Coulibaly, CFO
iShare Medical
iShare Medical is an online platform for securing, sending, and sharing medical information. The company creates software that allows patients, providers, and payers to receive, organize, and share a complete medical record organized around the patient to help save lives, improve care and outcomes, and reduce the cost of healthcare. Unlike most competitors, iShare Medical uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a learning health system — one that analyzes what has happened, monitors what is happening, automates resulting workflows, predicts what will happen, and has a feedback loop to improve the prediction models. This helps providers get the pertinent data they need for better insights for medical decision-making to help detect, prevent, and treat disease sooner leading to improved care and outcomes and reduced cost.
Health Transformer: Linda Van Horn, CEO, Founder & President
Lazurite
Lazurite is a patient-centered, surgeon-focused company driving MedTech innovation. The startup’s modular ArthroFree wireless ergonomic, handheld, and rechargeable design improves current minimally invasive surgery technology by eliminating the need for fiber-optic cables, power cables, and video boxes. ArthroFree is built around three core technologies: a patented, low-heat, solid-state light engine, secure FDA/FCC-approved wireless data transfer, and a custom, ergonomic design created with leading physicians. The platform is compatible with current endoscopic surgical systems and seamlessly integrates into existing OR workflows. ArthroFree can be implemented without a large upfront investment or time-intensive training, thus reducing administrative barriers to adoption.
Health Transformers: Eugene Malinskiy, CEO & Co-founder; and Leah Brownlee, President & General Counsel
Maverick Medical AI
For healthcare providers and payers such as Medicare Advantage plans, ACOs, and integrated care providers looking to document and get reimbursed for patients properly, Maverick Medical AI’s platform offers more accurate risk factoring, coding, and risk prediction maximized reimbursement, as well as more effective disease prevention and treatment. Maverick’s platform is powered by its Clinical AI Cognition™ technology. The technology mimics the way physicians learn and understand clinical language by learning each clinical sub-specialty anthology independently. The technology can convert unstructured medical text into structured sentences with a high accuracy rate of 98% and identify clinical insights that only a physician would see.
Health Transformers: Yossi Shahak, CEO & Co-founder; and Michael Brozino, CCO & Co-founder
PayGround
Using PayGround’s advanced cloud-based payment platform, practics can improve their workflow, boost patient satisfaction, and reduce costs. PayGround provides independent medical practices a modernized payment solution in which they can decrease costs and eliminate the friction of paying multiple bills through a single unified platform. It can be as simple as taking a picture of your bill and making a payment. Patients can use PayGround Go as a one-time payment method without signing up. With PayGround Pro, upon the first payment, patients are given the opportunity to set a password and create a secure account to aggregate data for future invoices. The software will recognize specific bills and allow for one-click payments across all devices. Past payments and data will be safely stored and displayed on an individual analytics dashboard for easy access.
Health Transformer: Drew Mercer, CEO & Founder
Prescrypto
For pharmaceutical companies looking to increase their digital footprint, Prescrypto offers the first technological transition for pharma with an option to advertise in LATAM, aiming to target doctors to improve patient outcomes. The Prescrypto platform allows both pharmaceutical companies to target doctors at the right time of prescription while allowing for doctors to view full medication data. In the exam room, doctors can search and find appropriate drugs for the patient they are working with at the moment, match it to their patient, search prices, and then print out and give prescription information to their patients. The platform allows pharmaceutical companies to ensure that their drugs are accessible to all Prescrypto providers at the point of prescription to ensure the best drug is prescribed, eliminating possible side effects, and cost barriers to patients.
Health Transformer: Everardo Barojas, CEO & Founder
RewardsMD
RewardsMD is a mobile solution that rewards patients for verifying their presence in a medical office using biometrics to guarantee patient presence and eliminate phantom billing claims. By combining the RewardsMD platform with corporate employer wellness apps, patients can live healthier, more productive lifestyles and be rewarded for lowering health care costs.
Health Transformer: Scott Kimmel, CEO & Founder
RxRevu
RxRevu is on a mission to enable providers with the tools they need to prescribe the right drug, at the right price, in real-time. RxRevu has developed SwiftRx, an EHR-embedded technology that allows providers to view prior authorizations and real-time, patient-specific cost information and drug options that are aligned with formulary and benefit data. Patient-specific benefit information is sourced in real-time via their partnerships with payers and PBMs in order to inform the provider before medication selection and fulfillment. This Prescription Decision Support technology gives prescribers the ability to order lower-cost therapeutic alternatives, and drive revenue for those health systems with pharmacy fulfillment options.
Health Transformers: Kyle Kiser, CEO & CSO; and Carm Huntress, Chief Innovation Officer & Co-founder
Sift Healthcare
For health systems losing revenue due to revenue cycle inefficiencies such as unpaid bills, Sift Healthcare’s data platform applies predictive analytics and machine learning to all reimbursement and patient pay data streams to enable high-power denials management and propensity-to-pay modeling. The platform helps providers better understand patients and collect payments more efficiently by using root cause analysis of denials payer contract variances. Unlike typical data scrubbing and rules engines, Sift’s platform leverages artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to reduce insurance claim denials, allowing for the normalization of very large billing datasets into a common platform and for granular payment insights not previously achievable.
Health Transformer: Justin Nicols, CEO & Founder
Vive Benefits
For employers that offer high-deductible plans to their employees, Vive Benefits is a health plan management app and medical payment card, backed by a credit program, that supplements HSAs for employees. Vive Benefits provides employees liquidity to pay for medical events whenever they need coverage, lowering the cost of care, automating tax optimization, reducing borrowing costs, and increasing worker productivity and retention. It integrates state-of-the-art financial products and services within the environment of a healthcare plan in a seamless, highly automated, and tax-advantaged manner. The result is a health plan that costs both the employer and employee less while improving total benefits and coverage for the employee.
Health Transformers: Ron Weidner, Founder; and Tamara St. Claire, CEO
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