Find-a-doctor site Amino has raised $25 million in a Series C round of venture funding, according to CEO and co-founder David Vivero. Highland Capital led the investment joined by Accel, Aspect Ventures, CRV, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures, and Pilot Wall Group.
A ZocDoc competitor, Amino gives users the ability to search for doctors who are most experienced in treating their particular ailment and tend to deliver the best health outcomes to patients of a similar profile. The company ranks doctors based on analysis of insurance claims and medical billing records, not merely user ratings or availability of appointments.
Users can filter lists of doctors by different scores from the likelihood they’ll perform a certain procedure, like a C-section, to their location or whether or not they accept a certain insurance carrier. The site includes both a cost estimation tool and virtual assistant that can book and confirm appointments for patients.
Vivero said that he was inspired to start Amino after frustrations seeking treatment and insurance plans that would cover his own, relatively rare condition– hereditary hemachromatosis, a metabolic disorder where your body fails to filter out too much iron. Now, the CEO reports, Amino includes information about some 910,000 physicians working in the US, and the estimated costs for about 100 different types of common procedures like DTaP vaccines for infants, X-rays or MRIs.
Vivero said, “We think healthcare is a unique ‘shopping’ experience. When you need it, you’ll find there is not a national price transparency tool. There is not a unique source where you go to buy it every time. You are usually a first time buyer of a given service. If you need knee surgery it’s not like buying coffee, where you do it everyday and have developed your informed opinions.”
The company started out solving the “search” problem for consumers, but it is beginning to work with health insurers, integrated delivery networks, employers and provider groups, as well. Vivero said health providers of every kind will be able to use Amino’s data and new tools for analyzing it to plan their own offerings.
“Insurance companies and employers are making important decisions with limited information today. We have about 10 years of data about American healthcare, and the tools to help them answer questions like: How do we design our premiums for next year? How do we think about the quality of physicians at our hospital? Or, where should we build an urgent care clinic?”
Highland Capital’s Head of Healthcare Credit and Equity, Michael Gregory, lauded Amino’s data-driven approach. He said, “Other sites provide summaries on health conditions, or anecdotal experience, but Amino uses actual data and cost report forms to deliver a new era of transparency to the consumer.” He views Amino as an “improved interface” for the healthcare industry.
Comment