How MedoSync crunches the data to streamline healthcare claims
With hospitals estimated to lose up to 9 per cent of revenue annually due to poor billing processes, the medtech start-up aims to help health providers prevent this leakage with a paperless, digitised billing system
When is a fintech also a healthtech? MedoSync might just be the answer. The start-up, based in Dogpatch Labs in Dublin city, has developed a paperless service for medical billing.
“We take the paper out of the healthcare claims process. We make it easier for hospitals to get paid for the work they do. Then, on the insurer side, we give them clean data in a digital format,” Martin Rochford, co-founder of MedoSync, told the Business Post.
Rochford started the business with Séamus Cooley in 2019. MedoSync currently has eight staff and has raised €1.3 million to date. The goal of the business is to help hospitals prevent revenue leakage, with MedoSync estimating that up to 9 per cent of hospital revenue is lost annually due to poor billing processes.
“The leakage happens because there are so many human errors involved. Medicine has so many complex processes and healthcare is only getting more complicated. As a result, managing claims gets more complicated,” Rochford said.
“It works on both sides, the hospital and insurer side. In some cases insurers overpay and in others they underpay. If a claim takes too long, it gets written off as a bad debt.”
Knowing the problem is only half the battle. Fixing it is another matter entirely, but it fundamentally comes down to getting organised.
“Our system is based in Microsoft Azure. We take the data from all the different IT systems in a hospital and bring them together in one place. Healthcare has lots of IT systems that don’t talk to each other so we pull the data into one place to make it easier to send the claim to the insurer,” Rochford said.
The idea to start MedoSync grew out of Rochford’s own experience as an A&E consultant in Tallaght hospital.
“I found the process to be archaic. It was slow and costly. In healthcare, we either have to start doing things more efficiently or we have to ration because we can’t just keep increasing spending. It’s a global problem. In the US, 7 per cent of all healthcare spending goes into managing claims,” Rochford said.
Enterprise Ireland has invested in the business and provided MedoSync with support in expanding internationally. The business is part of the high-potential start-up unit (HPSU).
“We’re currently in the process of entering the German market. We were fortunate enough to take part in an accelerator over there last year and won it,” Rochford said.
“Enterprise Ireland has really helped us a lot. Our focus for the next 12 months is moving forward in Germany and into the UK and Netherlands.”
MedoSync’s first customer was Laya Healthcare, working on its clinics, and has added Affidea, Bon Secours, VHI and Irish Life as clients since.
“We’ll continue to add customers in Ireland as we move into other markets. Germany spends €400 billion a year on healthcare and our software applies to everyone there. This software has great potential in that market,” he said.
“We want to keep adding customers and it’s exciting to be moving to another healthcare system and one that’s among the most advanced in the world.”
This Making it Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland
