Startups

Primary care startup Eden Health raises $10M Series A for nationwide expansion

The new capital will go towards expanding its virtual care offerings to 50 states and opening up new physical clinics in Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston and Los Angeles in partnership with an employer clinic company.

New York-based primary care startup Eden Health has raised a $10 million Series A round led by Greycroft Partners to fuel its growth across the country. Other participating investors included PJC, 645 Ventures and Aspect Ventures

The company, which was founded in 2015, has developed an employer-focused platform that combines virtual primary care services, physical in-person clinics and insurance navigation to cut through the confusing web of clinical services and benefits offered to employees.

After signing up with Eden Health, users are linked to their own personal care team made up of doctors, physician assistants, nurses, behavioral health providers and insurance navigators that are able to guide and coordinate care. The startup employs around 30 people, including clinicians, and bolsters its clinical staff with part-time employees from additional medical groups.

The new capital will go towards expanding its virtual care offerings to 50 states and opening up physical clinics in new markets including Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Boston and Los Angeles. Eden Health currently operates two physical clinics in New York.

Eden Health CEO Matt McCambridge said while employers can utilize the company’s platform in conjunction with existing primary care offerings, most of their customers instead choose to replace their current primary care provider.

“Even if you have a primary care provider that you really like, you’re sometimes waiting two or three weeks before you can get an appointment,” McCambridge said. “It’s not useful to have that primary care relationship unless you can take advantage of it.”

Eden Health positions primary care as central in effectively routing care, improving outcomes and lowering overall costs. That thesis has its roots in McCambridge’s experience of seeing his sister shuttled from specialist to specialist for an undiagnosed condition before a primary care doctor was able to step in and treat the issue. 

The startup is targeting “mid-market” employers with between 300 and 5,000 employees, which has not previously had access to Eden Health’s version of end-to-end primary care services.

As opposed to many startups selling into the employer market, Eden’s customers are both self-funded and fully-insured. 

“We’re full primary care providers and many customers will make us the primary care provider of record. We’re also credentialed with all the major carriers, so what’s happening is that (employers) are carving out a piece of what they would spend on primary care and sending that to us,” McCambridge said. 

Eden also serves to more tightly rein in specialty care referrals by giving clinical teams more time to handle issues and getting specialist second opinions prior to making referrals out. McCambridge said Eden only works with specialists that will report data back in order to provide more context to customers and ensure quality outcomes for patients. 

In order to convince employers to sign up, McCambridge said the startup contracts at-risk with their employer customers. So far, the company has seen around 10 percent in savings on total healthcare spend.

The company touts a 7 minute wait time for their virtual care and says handles 70 percent of their care virtually.

Even with the promise of virtual care, however, utilization of telehealth services has remained low. McCambridge said one of the company’s key points of differentiation has been in creating engagement rates of 63 percent in their platform by creating one place to handle virtual care visits, book in-person appointments and handle insurance claims.

Employers are getting increasingly fatigued in sheer number of digital health solutions being offered, many of which sit unused by employees. By functioning as an initial healthcare touchpoint for workers, Eden Health clinicians can build existing digital health tools into care plans.

Eden Health is just one in a pack of companies looking to blend in-person and digital care to offer end-to-end solutions for employers wanting to cut their healthcare costs. 

Case in point, employer clinic company Crossover Health recently acquired online primary care startup Sheerpa to build out its virtual care apparatus.

Another competitor is Carbon Health, a San Francisco-based virtual primary care provider which merged with a chain of urgent care clinics to provide a combination of physical and online-based services.

Picture: Ekspansio, Getty Images

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