Patient navigation platform Rightway Healthcare raises $20 million

The company provides employees with a platform for them to better understand their benefits

More than half people of people in the United States get their health coverage through their employer, but most of them don't even understand their own benefits. Add to that the increasingly rising costs for employers and employees, with the average premium paid by the employer and the employee for a family plan reaching $20,000 in 2019, and there's no doubt that the system, as it is right now, is unsustainable.

Rightway Healthcare is a company looking to tackle that problem with its patient navigation and healthcare advocacy platform. Its mission is to make employee-based healthcare better, and cheaper, for both sides by providing employers with an analytics and software, and employees with a platform that makes it easier to understand their benefits.

On Thursday, the company announced that it raised $20 million in a Series B funding round led by Thrive Capital. The money previously raised an $8 million round in March of this year, and a $2 million in a seed round in November 2017. 

Along with the funding, it was also revealed that Kareem Zaki, General Partner at Thrive Capital, has joined the board of directors at Rightway.

Founded in 2017, the New York-based Rightway works with employers, providing their employees with a healthcare platform they can log into to get information on doctors, facilities, and services. 

The service is available through either a smartphone or the web via the Rightway mobile app, or it can be accessed by calling the Rightway navigator, which consists of physicians, registered nurses and physicians assistants that are paired with each member and can answer their questions about care decisions, as well as help them with their benefits and expenses.

Rightway’s client base ranges from small firms to large companies, including global law firms and public investment banks. In the last nine months, the company's customer base increased 3,100 percent, growing from 25 companies to over 800. It now represents 500,000 members nation-wide. 

Since it last raised funding, Rightway has added 50 members to its team, and it now plans to double that number. The new funding will be used to expand Rightway's navigation platform and to explore new opportunities to deliver its products across the healthcare sector." That means expanding into new categories, including pharmacy benefits.

Ultimately, the company wants to "change the way the consumer thinks about the healthcare space," Rightway CEO Jordan Feldman told me earlier this year.

"If we can ameliorate the anxiety, confusion, and frustration that is so ubiquitous amongst the consumer population, then we have accomplished our goal. Not only does this save our customers both time and money, but it opens the door to further transparency and efficiency in the healthcare landscape," he said.