Turquoise Health raises $20M to boost price transparency - MedCity News
In an effort to improve price transparency in healthcare, laws have been passed to give consumers more cost information upfront, but it can still be difficult to access that information. Now, where health organizations, including hospitals, have issues complying with the rules, companies like healthcare pricing platform Turquoise Health are vowing to help.
On Wednesday, the San Diego-based startup announced it raised $20 million in Series A funding led by existing investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) to make transparent pricing ubiquitous in healthcare. The company works with payers and providers to deliver healthcare pricing data, and it offers a free search engine for patients to view hospital prices. It plans to make more pricing data available through its search engine soon, when payers are required to share that for all providers and care settings beginning July 1.
Pulling back the curtain on healthcare pricing is easier said than done, acknowledged Chris Severn, the company’s co-founder and CEO. That’s exactly why the investment is so important. He said the money will help pay for the backend work and software needed to understand what something as simple as a colonoscopy actually costs—where for a single procedure there’s a facility fee, doctor’s procedure fee and anesthesia fee, and it has to be determined what a patient’s health plan is paying for each.
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