Cloud-based EHR vendor athenahealth is expanding its More Disruption Please accelerator with investments in two new companies and the opening of a new location in San Francisco.
In addition, Massachusetts-based athena said it will partner with the Health Information Trust Network, better known as HITRUST, to offer its accelerator companies “verified security assessments” on HIPAA compliance and other regulatory matters.
The two new companies, which received investments of around $250,000 a piece, are both based in the company’s Boston accelerator. They are CredSimple, a startup focused on medical credentialing for hospitals and payers that automates verification of provider qualifications; and RubiconMD, a medical referral company that connects primary care physicians with specialist expertise at the point of care via remote consults.
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RubiconMD recently raised a total of $1.3 million, including the investment from athenahealth.
Meanwhile, the More Disruption San Francisco accelerator is now accepting applications from Bay Area mid-stage health care startups that will share the new athenahealth office space in the city’s tech hot spot South of Market district.
In the near future, athena also plans to roll out co-working space in which non-portfolio companies can rent space in Boston, San Francisco, “and potentially other athenahealth office locations,” the company said.
The partnership with HITRUST, the company said, is meant to lower the barriers of entry for health IT startups. The network will provide accelerator companies with data security risk assessments, through its Common Security Framework, that will be subsidized by athenahealth.
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The expansion of More Disruption Please comes amid increased skepticism surrounding athena’s prospects and stock price, which several investors have publicly suggested as a “bubble stock” due to fall in the near term.
In related athena accelerator news, its first portfolio company, Smart Scheduling, entered into athena’s marketplace. The startup is a developer of predictive scheduling analytics that aims to help providers better cope with no-shows and last-minute cancellations.
In addition to cloud-based EHRs, athenahealth also provides revenue cycle management and medical billing, patient engagement, care coordination, population health management, as well as Epocrates and other point-of-care mobile apps. It has some 59,000 health care providers in medical practices and health systems nationwide.
The More Disruption Please accelerator was started in 2010. Its network includes 2,500 members.
