Remote patient management company Prevounce Health raises $2.5M

This new raise brings its total Series A funding round to $7M

In the past decade or so, Medicare has pushed providers towards offering preventive and remote care services as a means to keep patients healthier and to reduce costs associated with adverse events. Remote patient monitoring (RPM) and chronic care management (CCM) are two such programs that have been shown to improve patient outcomes and can increase practice revenue.

However, these benefits were rarely realized because there are significant barriers for practices to provide and scale these programs and the market lacked an efficient, patient-centric and compliant solution in the market. 

That is what led Daniel Tashnek, a practicing healthcare attorney who worked in-house for a variety of healthcare companies, to found Prevounce Health, a provider of remote care management software, devices, and services. The company announced $2.5 million in Series A funding on Thursday.

"Prevounce was born from a desire to bridge that gap. I wanted to lend my expertise to these healthcare organizations that might be struggling. My goal is to ease the administrative burden, regulatory complexity and other challenges that otherwise get in the way of healthier patients," Tashnek told VatorNews.

Launched in 2019, Prevounce Health helps simplify the provision of remote patient monitoring, chronic care management, preventive care, and annual wellness visits while also ensuring compliance with regulatory and reimbursement guidelines. The company provides resources and support that are custom-tailored to clients' needs, allowing them to focus on providing good care to patients while reducing time spent on paperwork.

To date, the company has created remote care programs that help manage 18 conditions, including hypertension, heart failure, COPD, and preeclampsia.

What differentiates Prevounce is that it's "a one-stop-shop for healthcare organizations looking to run RPM, CCM, and wellness programs," Tashnek said.

"We have the industry leading software platform, proprietary connected devices, logistics and inventory management and expert services to support the efficient and effective management of patients with chronic conditions," he explained. 

"Our software platform isn’t limited to a single medical specialty or built for healthcare organizations of a specific shape or size. We have health system, practice, payer, and virtual health customers who can scale on our platform and services."

Unlike most devices on the market, which are either Bluetooth- or WiFi-enabled, requiring set-up and ongoing connectivity checks, Prevounce's patient devices are cellularly connected, making it the only RPM device manufacturer where all of its devices roam to practically any mobile network, allowing the company to service rural and other non-metro patient populations where it competitors can't. 

Another thing that sets the company apart, according to Tashnek, is its regulatory and compliance expertise.

"Medicare and commercial reimbursement for remote preventive care is a relatively novel concept. That coupled with the rise of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic led to a rush of companies in the space and practices eager to launch programs," he said.

"It’s important that both vendors and customers really know what they’re doing because there can be pretty severe penalties for not adhering to regulatory and billing requirements. Fortunately, we’ve saved a few clients who were on the wrong track elsewhere and pride ourselves on helping customers run compliant programs."

Prevounce's customers include health systems, physician practices, health insurance companies, and virtual health startups, some of which come to the company for full-spectrum remote care management software, patient device, and service support, while others may come for software or devices independently. 

For example, a physician leader or an administrator at a full-spectrum physician practice may be interested in launching an RPM program. Prevounce will work with them to identify a target condition that they’d like to address and to pinpoint eligible patients in their population while also creating custom patient kits with practice branding that include the requisite devices and ship them directly to patients. All of Prevounce's devices are clinically-validated and cellular-connected, which means they’re ready to use out of the box.

Patient device data flows into the customer’s unique tenant on its cloud-based platform, so the practice can track patient readings, automate their workflow with notification protocols, generate billing files, and much more. It also provides a host of ongoing services, from onboarding/training to operational support to performance coaching. 

Currently, Prevounce has more than 450 healthcare organizations using its products to manage over 26,000 patients across the country. 

The new round of funding, which was led by Cloud Hill Partners and Michael Hammond, former co-founder of Hammond Hanlon Camp LLC and H2C Securities, with participation from additional returning investors, adds to the $4.5 million in Series A funding that the company raised last year, bringing the total Series A to $7 million. The company's total funding now stands at $11 million. 

The company says it will use the latest financing, in part, to and scale its team: it currently has 39 employees, including a recently brought on marketing director, and will have two new sales representatives joining the team next week. Other roles it will be filling include open care manager, software engineering and logistics roles, as well as more care managers to build out its new care management service arm that operates as an extension of customer practice staff. 

"Frankly, we’re looking to add headcount across the board, everything from product to sales and marketing to operations, over the next year or so. Between the new funding and a growing list of happy customers, we’re fortunate to be in a strong financial position that’s going to enable us to continue to invest in and grow the business," said Tashnek.

The money will also be used to advance its product and service offerings, including the launch of two new patient devices within the next few weeks, including an upgraded weight scale for use with patients in weight management programs and/or monitoring for congestive heart failure and an enhanced blood pressure cuff for patients managing hypertension and preeclampsia. Both come with built-in cellular connectivity and automatically sync patient data to Prevounce’s cloud-based platform, or to third party platforms, allowing clinicians to easily access and monitor patient data.

The company will also continue to invest in its cloud-based platform, on which clients can manage, track, and generate billing for RPM, CCM, and Medicare annual wellness visit programs.

The ultimate goal at Prevounce is to enable healthcare organizations of all sizes to implement remote care management programs that make connected health easy for patients and providers alike, said Tashnek.

"Programs like RPM and CCM work. They have a well-documented ability to improve patient outcomes and generate practice revenue. But, unfortunately a lot of healthcare organizations don’t have the expertise, technology, or staff to manage programs on their own. Success for us looks like customers providing quality, comprehensive care to happy, healthy patients. And that these customers are fairly reimbursed for their services without a ton of added work."