EHR network Practice Fusion secures $6M

The company adds Western Technology Investment and Scott Banister to its list of investors

Electronic health records vendor Practice Fusion has been on a steady upward trajectory since launching in 2007.  It was named the number one EHR vendor by Brown-Wilson's annual Black Book Rankings in January, received the coveted Thiel-stamp-of-approval, and raised a $23 million Series B round of funding from Founders Fund and other investors. 

And now, the company is getting another vote of confidence.  Practice Fusion announced Tuesday that it has raised a round of funding exceeding $6 million from a number of new investors, including Western Technology Investment (WTI) and angel investor Scott Banister.  The new capital brings Practice Fusion’s total raised to more than $36 million.

Last time I spoke with CEO Ryan Howard back in April, Practice Fusion had some 75,000 medical professionals in its network and had approximately eight million patient records in its database.  Today, Practice Fusion boasts a network of over 100,000 users and serves 20 million patients.

With federal incentives in place, it’s no wonder the network is growing.  In an effort to coax healthcare providers over to electronic health records, the federal government launched the Meaningful Use program, which allows doctors to qualify for up to $44,000 in government incentives as long as they can show that they’re using an EHR platform often enough to be eligible. 

Having recently received its federal certification, Practice Fusion is now the largest certified Meaningful Use community in the U.S. and announced last week that its network includes some 5,000 medical professionals eligible for a collective $90 million in federal incentives. 

"I see Practice Fusion becoming the core platform for human health in the US. That's a huge opportunity and responsibility, but this team can do it," said Scott Banister in a statement.

As a cloud-based solution, Practice Fusion has positioned itself to be the go-to resource for the 80% of doctors who practice in groups of nine or fewer, who simply can't afford to implement an electronic health record system on site. These days only 10% of doctors have electronic health records, but as the average doctor makes $120,000 a year, that doesn't leave a lot of room for paying an IT person to manage the health record system.

The company offers doctors a turnkey solution that is 100% cloud-based and completely free, and the medical community is flocking to it. The company's revenue grew 400% in 2010 and the user base of doctors increased 500%, according to Ryan Howard.