This morning Cleveland-based MedPilot, a patient financial engagement platform, landed $1.5 million in new funding. The lates list of funders includes Jumpstart, TurnCap, Northcoast Fund, Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health, Valley Growth Ventures, and Hudson River Capital Partners. 

“What is awesome about this specific round is it was done by Cleveland and midwest investors,” Matt Buder Shapiro, founder and chief marketing officer at MedPilot, told MobiHealthNews. "We moved from New York to the midwest and being able to raise money was ... amazing. A lot of people talk about how it is hard to raise money if you aren’t on the coasts.” 

This news comes a little over a year after the company raised $1.7 million in seed funding in December 2018. Later the company secured an extra $400,000. As of today the company’s total funding to $3.6 million. 

WHAT THEY DO

This Cedar Sinai spinout focuses on using AI and other digital components to engage patients about their medical bills. It works with health systems’ billing departments to reduce their overall administrative burden. 

In addition to the tech component, the service also has a team that patients can talk to about their bills and any questions they may have. 

The company is using artificial intelligence to develop a chatbot that will assist users through their payment process. 

“[We think] about how we communicate with patients over the phone and digitally. That is what we are using to build conversational AI and engineering …. a more fluent conversational AI,” Nathan Spoden, founder and COO of MedPilot told MobiHealthNews. “As we do this today we are taking into consideration conversations we had with our patients and how we resolved those issues.”

WHAT IT’S FOR 

The company will put the new funds towards growing its team and developing its product. 

“Now we have over 40 employees in Cleveland and are growing rapidly. We have really good investors and worked with over a million patients,” Shapiro said. 

MARKET SNAPSHOT 

This isn’t the only company working on patient financials. New York City-based Cedar is offering a patient personalized medical billing system. Cedar pitches a smart billing system that incorporates multiple data points collected across the patient’s payment process. 

ON THE RECORD 

“JumpStart is excited to be partnering with the MedPilot team to grow their business,” Rem Harris, senior partner of Investing at JumpStart, said in a statement. “Patient billing is complicated and can often be unclear to patients. The MedPilot solution simplifies the billing process for patients delivering convenient and easy to understand billing information. The result is a better experience for patients and improved revenue collections for healthcare providers."