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Former Clevelanders come home to grow health care technology startup MedPilot – cleveland.com


CLEVELAND, Ohio — A typical high-end urgent-care clinic does everything it can to provide a good patient experience, right down to a refrigerator stocked with vitamin water and a tinkling indoor waterfall in the waiting room.

It’s a soothing patient experience, but how will the clinic keep those vibes going after the patient leaves?

Entrepreneur Nathan Spoden, 30, believes consumers prefer health care providers that send appointment reminders via text and offer a billing portal that explains each charge in plain English. MedPilot, a health technology startup now based in Cleveland, can provide that kind of patient service.

The company was founded in New York, and relocated to Cleveland’s South Marginal Road about a year ago. It came back to fulfill the bring-it-home dreams of its boomerang co-founders Spoden and Chief Marketing Officer Matt Buder Shapiro. Spoden, the chief operating officer, grew up in Mentor; Buder Shapiro, 28, is from Shaker Heights.

The company’s third co-founder and CEO, Jacob Myers, is from San Francisco.

MedPilot also wanted to be part of northeast Ohio’s health care technology sector alongside the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals and Explorys. In less than a year, MedPilot has grown from five to 30 employees and attracted $2 million in investments. It’s on track to hire an additional 40 employees this year.

The company, headquartered on South Marginal Road in Cleveland, brings artificial intelligence and machine learning to patient billing, marketing surveys, follow-up appointment reminders and other doctor-to-patient communication.

MedPilot has sold its specialized software and algorithm mostly to local and national urgent care chains and physician groups representing a total of 350,000 patients. Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles has invested in the company and will be Medpilot’s first client that is a large health system, Spoden said.

“We’ve become an automated solution for health care providers to plug into their patient billing process to create not only a better experience, but help reduce costs and increase efficiency,” Spoden said.

Jon Pinney, managing partner of the law firm Kohrman, Jackson & Krantz, made a six-figure investment in MedPilot. Pinney learned of the company from Chantel Moody, corporate partnerships director for health at Plug and Play, which is also a MedPilot investor.

Pinney intends to introduce the MedPilot guys to more potential investors and clients.

“They do a great job with pitches,” Pinney said. “Cleveland is a medical town and (MedPilot) plays well with that strength. I’m very optimistic it will continue to progress to a multi-million dollar business soon.”

MedPilot aims to grow by fixing billing problems that can ruin a patient’s experience.

“Billing is such a major pain point, and we attack that pain point for the patient,” Buder Shapiro said.

The company’s billing portal provides definitions for complicated insurance jargon and explains each charge clearly. Text reminders for payments take into account the size of a payment balance and how long it has gone unpaid. MedPilot’s algorithm looks at various factors, such as patient demographics and payment history, to offer a customized payment plan.

MedPilot also sends texts and emails to remind patients about appointments. The software does not define medical conditions, and can send paper bills if desired.

“You as the patient don’t see us,” Buder Shapiro said. “You’re communicating with your health care provider. We’re in the background.”

Dr. Robert Haber, a Beachwood dermatologist, initially signed on with MedPilot because Buder Shapiro is his patient. Haber also recognized that patients could have a good experience with his staff, but wind up unhappy over a billing snafu.

“Snail mail still accounts for most of the communication with patients,” Haber said via email. “I’ve always believed in the most cutting-edge technology in dermatologic care, which is why I wanted to engage MedPilot to fully enhance my practice from a technology perspective. My patients and I have been incredibly pleased with the results so far.”

The idea for MedPilot’s software and algorithm sprang from Spoden’s previous consulting work involving medical billing. Spoden saw that patient billing was an afterthought, so he wanted to bring artificial intelligence and machine learning to the problem.

There are competing companies focused only on patient collection, but MedPilot keeps its eye on improving patient experience.

“What differentiates us is the AI that we’re using,” Spoden said. “We’re building a knowledge base on patient billing, and have something that can automatically communicate with patients on a provider’s behalf.”

The company launched in 2015, and signed up its first customers in 2017.

Spoden and Buder Shapiro shared a longtime dream of running a Cleveland-based startup. They recognized Cleveland’s growing importance as a health care innovation hub. They knew they could find technical talent and clients here, but questioned how easily they could raise financial backing.

Their apprehensions on that score were unfounded. On Saturday, April 13, the company plans to announce a Series A round of fundraising, with a goal of between $3 ad $5 million in investments.

“We’re trying to change the narrative that this is a terrible city to be in,” Buder Shapiro said. “Clevelanders hear that narrative so much, they start to believe it.”

Investors and tech talent are plentiful here, but the region lacks a large startup community that comes together informally and is willing to share resources, the men agreed.

“We just like to meet anyone we can. I wish more people did that,” Spoden said. “I know in Palo Alto that’s pretty normal. In New York, that’s normal. In Cleveland, people are more like, that’s my investor, don’t talk to him.”

In the future, MedPilot may add features that allow patients to see medical test results, ask a chatbot about health questions and receive a reminder via Facebook Messenger.

“We want to be the best communication engine in health care, and we’re not going to stop until we get there,” Buder Shapiro said.



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