To the uninitiated, one might assume that healthcare reimbursements follow a simple formula: deliver a service to your patient, submit an insurance claim automatically, and get paid in minutes or days. The reality of our current healthcare system is far more complicated. Many healthcare providers (whether small independent practices or large healthcare systems) often fly blind when it comes to the timing and volume of their healthcare reimbursements. In fact, first-pass collection rates often hover around 60-80%, and the process can take months. It’s mind-boggling when you think about it: how many other industries forgo close to 30% of their revenue just because they struggle to get paid (for a product or service they’ve already delivered)? The result is that many providers suffer from meaningful working capital issues, which can stunt growth and lead to financial hardship (including bankruptcy).
These challenges in our country’s healthcare reimbursement system have spawned an entire industry called Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). RCM companies are healthcare-specific business process outsourcing (BPO) companies who focus on submitting insurance claims for their provider clients and deal with the adjudication often required to get paid fairly. Unfortunately, many of these firms charge extremely high fees and employ hundreds (if not thousands) of human call center representatives who process claims manually (with limited to no understanding of the clinical or billing nuances in the practice areas they serve). In the age of artificial intelligence, there has to be a better way…
Enter Camber, a company radically simplifying the healthcare reimbursement process for healthcare providers so they can focus on what they do best: delivering quality care to their patients.
Over the past few years, Camber has assembled an incredible team of technologists and turned the RCM challenges for healthcare providers into a software problem. By leveraging AI in their billing workflows, Camber has increased first-pass collection rates to around 93% — delivering meaningful financial impact for their clients’ growth and bottom line. By focusing on areas of highly recurring healthcare, Camber has built one of the world’s largest claims databases across specialities like Autism (ABA), Speech Language Pathology (SLP), Occupational Therapy (OT), Physical Therapy (PT), Neuropsychology (and many more to come). The Camber platform not only enables faster and more efficient reimbursements, but it also delivers distinctive growth insights for clients such as where to open new clinics, visibility into payor contract negotiation, and more.
We’ve been incredibly impressed with Camber’s execution and are excited to share that a16z is doubling down on our investment and leading their Series B round of financing.
Although we’re just now sharing our involvement with the company, our partnership with Christophe, Nate, Celina, and Jade goes back several years — first as an angel investor, then in leading their Series A, and now their Series B. It’s been a privilege to watch them grow as a team — leveraging their distinctive combination of domain expertise and strong technical foundation — to deliver world-class billing execution to some of the largest healthcare providers in their space. We’re just getting started!
