Goodbill, a startup based in Seattle, has raised $2 million in new capital to help reduce medical costs for patients and a subset of insurers. The company targets errors in hospital bills by analyzing digital medical records and scrutinizing medical claims to uncover and challenge mistakes in charges. Initially launched in 2021 to assist individuals in reviewing their hospital bills and seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 diagnostic tests, Goodbill later expanded its services to include larger companies that self-fund their employees’ healthcare.
Approximately 90 million Americans are covered by self-funded plans, where companies directly pay for their employees’ healthcare rather than purchasing health insurance plans. Goodbill previously inserted their analysis into the billing process after insurers had paid their portion, passing on the remaining costs to patients. However, employers and administrators of self-funded plans requested the company to get involved upstream to address the charges being billed to them. Goodbill has now expanded its services to cater to these self-funded health plans while still providing assistance to individual patients.
The startup has grown its operations nationwide and is currently working with several employers and health plan third-party administrators, covering a total of 50,000 people. The $2 million in new funding is anchored by Founders’ Co-op, Maveron, and Liquid 2 Ventures, along with additional unnamed funds and angel investors. Goodbill’s services also include determining if a patient qualifies for financial assistance, as nonprofit hospitals are required to provide programs that discount or waive bills for eligible patients.
Goodbill’s platform is compatible with major electronic health record vendors and utilizes artificial intelligence to examine claims and medical records, with human reviewers verifying the analysis. Co-founders Patrick Haig and Ian Sefferman previously collaborated on MobileDevHQ, a startup that helped app users increase their reach and was later acquired by Seattle’s Tune. Haig and Sefferman have now shifted their focus to Goodbill, aiming to make a positive impact in the broken U.S. healthcare system, where Americans owe an estimated $220 billion in medical debt.
Haig acknowledges the complexities of the U.S. healthcare billing system, describing it as more Byzantine than most people realize. Despite the challenges, Goodbill hopes to make a difference by identifying and challenging errors in hospital bills, assisting patients in seeking reimbursement, and navigating financial assistance programs offered by nonprofit hospitals. The company’s innovative approach to reducing medical costs and addressing billing inaccuracies demonstrates its commitment to improving the healthcare experience for patients and insurers alike.
