NYC-based digital healthcare company, Sherpaa, has raised $2.25 million, bringing the company’s totally funding to $8 million. Investors for this round are O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Softbank and Draper and Associates.
Co-founded by Dr. Jay Parkinson MD, MPH in 2012, New York-based, Sherpaa is a health service that HR executives can provide on top of insurance plans. It allows employees to have access to physicians 24/7 through phone or asynchronous text communication as well as insurance navigators, who can help answer any questions employees may have about their plan. The company currently ‘takes care’ of more than 100 companies including Tumblr, Etsy, and GLG.
How It Works
Offered only through employers, Sherpaa charges $30 monthly for each company employee for access to a virtual doctor. Sherpaa powers its medical practice in the cloud with dedicated board-certified physicians and insurance navigators. The company’s goal is to help patients better understand their insurance and have more medical resources on hand, rather than always having to schedule a doctor’s visit.
The service saves time and money by solving 70% of issues without an in-person office visit resulting in fewer interactions with the healthcare system yielding greater efficiency for the individual and savings for the employer.
Likewise, Sherpaa helps doctors focus on taking care of patients rather than dealing with insurance companies and administrative tasks. In 2014, 70% of Sherpaa’s clients’ medical problems in-house and lowered their insurance premiums by an average of 6.5
“Sherpaa is a gamechanger. The cost of healthcare today is unsustainable: patients are overpaying for treatment, and doctors aren’t able to deliver the level of service that they’d like to. Sherpaa is reducing the number of easily diagnosable health concerns that normally require an in-person consultation by bringing your doctor to your phone. The worst part about having a fever or sore throat is going to the doctor’s office. With Sherpaa, you can text your symptoms and images if relevant, get diagnosed in minutes, and spend your time resting and watching absurd amounts of House of Cards. Alternatively, you might want to know more about your health insurance coverage so that you can visit the doctor when you need to – and Sherpaa provides you with that information in a digestible conversational format as well.”
