Keerthi Kanubaddi founded ReadySet Surgical, a Cincinnati-based health care IT startup, in 2015 after years as a medical device sales rep. He saw firsthand what happens prior to a surgery – there were many cases where all sides were scrambling to get the right instruments or implants in stock at the last minute – and how common billing errors could be. It resembled a scene, he said, straight out of the "wild, Wild West."
ReadySet Surgical was created as a way to do better. The company, which started largely as an inventory management software platform, continues to evolve with its offerings, and is now beefing up its team as it moves toward a “significant Series B” round later this year, Kanubaddi said.
The company has hired multiple new employees over the last several months, bringing its staff count to 35, including one of the top CFO names in Columbus, Heather Mills. Kanubaddi said the CFO title is an expanded role for the company.
Mills previously served as CFO of Updox, a fast-growing Columbus telehealth company that was acquired in December by Denver’s EverCommerce. Mills, who will be based in Columbus, said there are a lot of parallels between Updox and ReadySet. Updox grew from 20 employees to 140 at the time of its exit.
She said it’s a success story she hopes to replicate here.
“Updox was a really fast-paced environment where I learned a lot every day, and there are actually a lot of parallels with ReadySet,” Mills told me. “It seems like another fun adventure, where I’ll be able to make an impact almost from the ground floor.”
Kanubaddi said Mills was brought in specifically to help ready the company for a fund raise in 2021. He declined to comment on how much that raise could potentially be, but it would follow a $5.5 million Series A that closed in early 2020. ReadySet's lead investors include CincyTech, Queen City Angels and Connetic Ventures locally, as well as Cleveland-based JumpStart and North Coast Ventures. Cincinnati-based Mercy Health, one of the largest health care systems in the country, has also invested in ReadySet since 2017 and partners with the company to use its software in its hospitals.
The hire also coincides with the recent roll out of its latest product, RS Capture, which represents a natural evolution of ReadySet’s capabilities, Kanubaddi said. Broadly, ReadySet’s cloud-based technology helps health systems, hospitals and surgery centers manage device tracking, patient scheduling and room turnover. But Kanubaddi said it’s about more than inventory management.
RS Capture includes a predictive capability that catches supply chain shortages early, helps prevent the use of medical devices or implants that are “off contract” and validates everything billed to a patient against the hospital contract. The idea is to make surgeries more cost-efficient for the hospital and the patient.
“In the last year we’ve made a lot of moves to really become a much more impactful company,” Kanubaddi said. “This is a big evolution.”
RS Capture was recently implemented in a four-hospital system on the East Coast and will soon be expanded to others, but in the first 60 days of its pilot, Kanubaddi said ReadySet has identified $180,000 worth of discrepant line items. He expects RS Capture will identify roughly $10 million worth of discrepant charges for the health system in its first year of usage.
Kanubaddi said there’s no room for inefficiencies, particularly as hospitals face increasing financial pressure following a shutdown in elective procedures at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“This is a potential game changer for the industry,” Kanubaddi said. “These are things that would not have been caught or would require a lot of manual intervention. Now we can go to a hospital and offer an end-to-end solution. If you’re having problems with surgery and billing errors, which every hospital does, and facing late delivery from vendors, we can provide a holistic answer. We’re going to notify your vendor, we’re going to make sure everything’s in contract, we’re going to make sure everything’s delivered on time and that everything billed to the patient is tracked and validated.”
Mills said ReadySet is positioning itself for high growth.
“The company can make a big difference in the health care market,” she said.
