A startup called CredSimple is building a medical credentialing database, and has just raised $1.5 million in seed funding to help healthcare and insurance companies manage their doctor networks. Bowery Capital led the round, with participation from Primary Venture Partners and a number of angels.
Credentialing is a process that starts when a doctor gets a job at a new practice or hospital. It generally takes three months to complete, according to CredSimple founder Mike Simmons, during which the doctor can’t see patients or perform surgery. Also, during this time the hospital and the insurance providers carry out their own lengthy background checks to confirm that the doctor is qualified.
CredSimple is currently working with 10 healthcare providers and payers, including Oscar, and managing credentials for doctors in nearly every state.“There are a lot of moving parts that relate to compliance, and because it’s all manual, there’s a high rate of error in the data,” says Simmons. “The intake form for healthcare providers is 100 pages of photocopied documents that need to be filled out by hand and FedEx-ed back to the hospital, and invariably there’s a date that’s not completed somewhere.”
By bringing the entire process online and partnering with medical boards, CredSimple has been able to cut the three-month verification process down to a couple of weeks, depending on how quickly things move on the doctor’s end. The service verifies each piece of information against a primary source, whether that’s a medical licensing board, a drug enforcement agency, or an educational institution.
“It’s a complicated process to acquire the information, but once we set it up, we can pull information from these sources on a monthly basis,” Simmons says.
CredSimple then shares the results with the hospital and insurance providers, so they can approve the doctor immediately.
The company is currently working with 10 healthcare providers and payers, including Oscar, and managing credentials for doctors in nearly every state.
[Via: TechCrunch]