When navigating your choices for choosing healthcare providers, insurance companies have traditionally sent you a directory that’s as thick as a phone book. Not only is the physical directory challenging to use, but it’s also static and often contains outdated information. Enter Ribbon Health, a health data platform that powers payers, providers, and digital health companies with accurate data through an API layer that integrates into existing workflows. The various participants in the healthcare system are able to seamlessly integrate comprehensive information on doctors, insurance plans, cost and quality of care data from thousands of sources, resulting in a continuously updating and accurate repository. All this leads to a better experience for patients navigating the healthcare system while introducing efficiencies for providers, insurance companies, and healthcare institutions.
AlleyWatch sat down with Cofounder and CEO Nate Maslak to learn more about the importance of data in the healthcare space, the company’s future plans, and recent round of funding from notable investors.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We raised $10.25 million for our Series A funding round. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (“a16z”) and included Y Combinator and BoxGroup, as well as health care and technology leaders Nat Turner, CEO of Flatiron Health; Vivek Garipalli, CEO and co-founder of Clover Health; and Eric Roza, the former CEO of DataLogix.
Tell us about the product or service that Ribbon Health offers.
Ribbon is a health data platform that provides the critical infrastructure to power accurate provider directories, reliable referral management, and efficient care navigation. We offer all of this through a seamless API layer that easily integrates into each customer’s existing workflow and continuously improves the accuracy of its data with its spread and use.
What inspired the start of Ribbon Health?
Health care has a data problem. My cofounder Nate (Nate Fox)Nate Fox and Nate Maslak and I both had experiences in our lives that made us realize just how hard it is to find the information you need in today’s health care system.
We initially started Ribbon as a consumer-driven care navigation tool that would help people manage their own health care, but quickly realized there was a lack of reliable and accurate information to build this. That’s when we instead set out to build a health care data platform that provides the critical infrastructure needed to make every health care decision high-quality, cost-effective, and convenient.
How is Ribbon Health different?
Ribbon is the only platform to offer all of these solutions–provider directory, referral management, insurance network, and, now, price, cost-effectiveness, and quality– in one place. We are also uniquely able to deliver the most comprehensive data on doctors, insurance plans, and cost and quality measures because the platform culls information from thousands of sources as it spreads and is used. Finally, our API layer is able to integrate seamlessly with any customer workflow, whether its a health plan, provider, or digital health solution.
What market does Ribbon Health target and how big is it?
Our customers include payers, providers, and digital health companies. We can work with every kind of health care stakeholder, from large health systems to innovative telemedicine providers, national health plans to regional MA plans, and EHRs to HSAs.
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What’s your business model?
Our customers license the use of Ribbon’s platform. Customers, such as payers, providers, and digital health companies, come to Ribbon for a variety of our solutions — whether they’re looking to improve their referral management, provider directory, or care navigation tools. Ribbon improves the health care experience for these stakeholders as well as their patients, members, or customer
Who do you consider to be your primary competitors?
Our platform provides the critical infrastructure to power accurate provider directories, reliable referral management, and efficient care navigation. By powering these use-cases across the ecosystem through an API layer, we are able to improve the product with every new customer, and allow them to share in the network effects that are created. Individually, there are companies that offer each of these solutions on a one-off basis, but we’re the only company that can solve these problems with a one-stop-shop solution that improves with scale.
What was the funding process like?
We’re honored by the support of some great investors. Our investors understand our story, our vision, and recognize the need for a data platform like Ribbon. As part of this Series A, we’re also excited to have a16z’s Julie Yoo join our Board of Directors.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
From the onset, we knew the importance of finding the right partners who not only shared in our vision for Ribbon, but also brought experience and valuable insight to help materialize our vision. With that as a central consideration, we were fortunate to find investors with deep expertise in innovative health care, enterprise technology, and scaling high-growth companies.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
There’s a clear demand for comprehensive data on doctors, insurance plans, and the cost and quality of care. Today, there is $700B of waste in our health care system due to decisions made in opaque environments with limited and inaccurate data. That’s why we’ve seen great interest from customers and investors to date in our platform that offers this data through a seamless API layer.
Now, this funding will help us bring our health care data platform to more payers, providers, and digital health companies, allowing them to break through the information barriers in health care.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We just announced our new provider cost and quality solution, and over the coming months will roll it out to customers. This solution enables them to access accurate quality and outcomes indicators and make reliable reliable cost-effectiveness comparisons.
We’re also hiring at our headquarters in New York, recruiting talent to join in software engineering, business development, and product roles.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
I’d say, focus on the fundamentals. This means talking to your customers and making sure you are solving their most important problems. It also means nailing your unit economics, building your product to scale, and identifying the most important revenue channels. If you focus on optimizing for the most pressing needs, the rest will follow.
I’d say, focus on the fundamentals. This means talking to your customers and making sure you are solving their most important problems. It also means nailing your unit economics, building your product to scale, and identifying the most important revenue channels. If you focus on optimizing for the most pressing needs, the rest will follow.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Increasingly, health care is only as good as the data it’s based on. That is why, we’re focused on continuing to grow our customer base of payers, providers, and innovative digital health companies. For providers, payers, and digital health companies, our platform and API can deliver the most comprehensive, accurate data, that allows them to focus on better care, healthier patients, and controlling costs.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Skovorodka. I grew up eating Russian food, and when I crave comfort food or just a great meal, nothing hits the spot like this spot in Brighton Beach.
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