Practice Fusion welcomes former PayPal exec

Jason Portnoy, former finance VP of PayPal, becomes CFO of electronic health record startup

Electronic health records are moving into the cloud and Practice Fusion is poised to be the leader in the space. The company announced Tuesday morning that former Palantir CFO Jason Portnoy is joining the team as the new Chief Financial Officer. 

Founded in 2005, the company has been growing at breakneck speed since Obama's recent call for all-electronic medical records by 2015 has pushed health professionals to switch to electronic records en masse. But the switch can be costly: implementing an electronic record system on-site in a single office totals an average $250K, which is quite a bit considering the average doctor makes $120,000 a year. 

"Most doctors can’t afford technology for EHR today," said Practice Fusion CEO Ryan Howard during a recent phone call. "Approximately 80% of all physicians operate in offices of eight or less, and with the average doctor making $120,000 a year, most don’t have resources or capital to have an IT guy on-site."

Practice Fusion 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. 

Portnoy is a welcome addition to the team, considering his rich history of scaling similar hyper-growth companies. As VP of financial planning and analysis at PayPal, Portnoy saw the company through its IPO and $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay. As CFO for Palatin, he helped the company secure a $90 million round of financing in 2009. 

“Practice Fusion’s revolutionary technology solution has the potential to fundamentally change the face of the national healthcare system,” said Portnoy in a prepared statement. “Our dominant market position, the quality and dedication of the team, and the critical impact of this technology on patient outcomes made the decision to join the company an easy one. I look forward to helping drive our continued success in modernizing the healthcare industry.”

Practice Fusion's database holds some eight million patient records and serves 55,000 users per day. The company has raised funds from Peter Thiel, Mark Goines, Salesforce, and and Morgenthaler. 

Image source: PracticeFusion.com