Created to ease long wait times for primary care, telehealth startup Bright.MD raised $16.7 million in an oversubscribed series C round. The Portland-based company plans to use the funds to expand its telehealth platform, SmartExam, which lets patients share their symptoms and health concerns before routing them to the most appropriate care setting.
Bright.MD CEO and co-founder Dr. Ray Costantini said the funding would help the company support more health systems triage and treat low-acuity conditions, while escalating more serious conditions to a higher level of care.
Costantini, a former regional medical director for Providence Health and Services, co-founded the company in 2014 with Mark Swinth, a former Bain & Co. software and health insurance consultant. Bright.MD says its asynchronous platform can automate 90% of a primary care or urgent care visit, including charting, coding, billing and order entry.
Physicians will review a patient’s medical record and intake data. Then, they can provide a diagnosis, or fast-track the patient for a video visit or an in-person visit.
Bright.MD’s primary customers are health systems, including Mercy and SCL Health. In the first quarter, the company said it supported more than 100,000 patient visits related to Covid-19.
“The pandemic has provoked a monumental shift in the care delivery and patient-provider experience. There’s no turning back. Healthcare will begin at the virtual front door, making healthcare delivery more efficient and allowing patients to get better care and providers to deliver it virtually and expeditiously,” Costantini said in a news release.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Lead investors for the funding round include B Capital, Seven Peaks Ventures and Concord Health Partners. The company also brought on a group of strategic investors, including Philips Health Technology Ventures, UnityPoint Health Ventures and Concord Health Partners, a healthcare investment firm that is working with the American Hospital Association on its AHA Innovation Development Fund.
Rich Wilmot, head of Philips Technology Ventures, said the company chose to invest in Bright.MD both for the current opportunity with Covid-19 and the long-term telehealth opportunity.
“Bright.MD delivers solutions that help address the challenges that overwhelm busy healthcare professionals. The team has proven that they are nimble, and can quickly adapt to fast-changing market condition,” Wilmot said in a news release. “We are teaming up with Bright.MD, because their platform is not only valuable during the current pandemic; we believe that its technology promises to enable new care models and help healthcare providers long into the future.”
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