These are exciting times for healthcare startups and investors alike. The healthcare market is well over 3 trillion dollars and only growing as the United States spends more on health care per capita ($8,608), and more on health care as a percentage of its GDP (17.9%), than any other nation in 2011.
After a long 80 year ban on “general solicitation”, startups like referral MD can publicly state that they are fundraising and take money from an accredited investor.
Digital Healthcare is heating up
A segment which referralMD is a part of called Digital health saw funding in July 2013 reach 51 deals totaling $259.5 million from 58 investors, according to StartUp Health’s Insights Funding Report July 2013. Funding in the health tech industry has seen over a 47% growth for the 2013 year to date in comparison to the previous year.
So what does this all mean?
referralMD is using the opportunity to reach out to investors that can offer a value-add to the company, would like to be involved in its growth, and are interested in working alongside a great team of talented entrepreneurs.
So how can referralMD make the world better?
Managing several hundred clinics, labs, imaging centers, and primary care colleagues, (or 1000+ if you are a larger facility such as a hospital) can be daunting, expensive and a huge liability to not only your budget but also your company’s reputation.
What’s wrong with today’s systems?
EXPENSIVE: (LABOR INTENSIVE)
•$250 billion on 30 billion transactions/year in the U.S.
•Average general practitioners spend $42 thousand/year managing referrals.
•Require in-house servers, IT staff, and maintenance.
•$100’s of thousands to millions of dollars a month in lost treatment revenue.
•Providers need to fill out an average of 20,000 forms every year.
•9-11 copies of each document, spend $20 in labor to file each document, and lose one of every 20 documents.
SLOW/INACCURATE
•Paper referrals can take up to an hour or more to process.
•Paper referrals are error-prone and inaccurate.
•86% of mistakes made in the healthcare industry are administrative.
•Three of every 10 tests are reordered because results cannot be found.
•Primary Care to Specialist: 68% of specialists receive no information from the PCP prior to referral visits
•Progress Update: 25% of PCP’s do not receive timely information from specialists post-referral
CLOSED SYSTEM: (NON-INTEROPERABLE)
•Highly fragmented, 1-way communication system.
LACK OF NETWORK INSIGHT
•Inaccurate network and marketing analytics.
•Over-reliance on one-to-one personal relationships and informal processes.
•Inability to properly manage marketing efforts of referral sources.
What is referralMD?
The referralMD proprietary network enables primary care and specialist providers to have a modern and practical view of their business relationships by allowing them to:
- Efficiently manage their cross-referral communications.
- Review real-time network marketing intelligence.
- Measure network performance and monetary impact.
- Manage patient leakage
- Improve patient access