Health IT, Hospitals

Healthcare startup finds traction with automated tools for wellness exams for Medicare

One provision of Obamacare requires primary care providers to conduct wellness exams for Medicare patients. […]

One provision of Obamacare requires primary care providers to conduct wellness exams for Medicare patients. Health IT company WellTrackONE, which developed a way to automate the exam to make it easier for practices to administer and get reimbursement has closed a Series A round, according to a company statement.

A graduate of the Blueprint Health accelerator in New York, the South Carolina-based healthcare startup raised $1.5 million from New York venture capital firm Easton Capital and syndicated the deal with BioAdvance in Philadelphia and JumpStart Ventures in Chicago. The funding will go toward sales and marketing support.

In an emailed response to questions, CEO Peter Bechtel said that so far, it is finding the most traction with accountable care organizations and integrated delivery networks.

“That has taken off like a rocket. What we bring to them is compelling: more revenue for their doctors, a method to significantly reduce healthcare cost by avoidance of catastrophic illness and injury, increase in ACO attribution, minable data for outcomes and clinical measures.”

He added that the startup expects to expand its staff from 19 to more than 50 by the end of the year.

The wellness exams for Medicare seeks basic details about patients’ health such as height, weight, blood pressure and a review of medical and family history. There is also a neurological component with a personal risk assessment that includes any mental health conditions, a review of functional ability, detection of any cognitive impairment and a screening for depression. The information is typically taken by a nurse practitioner or medical assistant. A physician develops a care plan based on the information.

The platform handles patient outreach, scheduling and evaluation from small primary-care practices to large healthcare organizations. Although it seeks to have 1,000 primary-care physicians in its customer base, it sees accountable care organizations as a critical source of business. The idea is that ACOs would use the data from these annual wellness exams to do a better job of tracking their patients.

Among its partners, myCatalyst works with WellTrackONE so that an ACO can capture annual wellness visit data and integrate it into a health information exchange run by myCatalyst.

Another healthcare startup that’s developed a product for the wellness exam is M3 Information, which is based in Rockville, Md. Its M3 Clinician tool concentrates on the psychological screening portion of wellness exams.

[Photo credit: Medical exam from BigStock Photo]

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