As the cost of health care rises, Americans are increasingly faced with difficult decisions related to their medical bills.
For those that choose to move forward with the sometimes expensive care, loans are often the only path forward. In the last year, Americans borrowed $88 billion to pay for health care, a new survey from West Health-Gallup found.
That same survey found that 65 million adults did not seek treatment for their health issues due to the costs.
In an effort to make health care costs more manageable for the average patient, Loveland’s Epic River Healthcare has built a loan platform that enables medical providers to offer financing from local banks to help patients pay their unmet medical bills.
Epic River initially launched its platform as a way to close traditional commercial loans from banks, helping community banks compete with online lenders. After a partner reached out and pitched the patient financing idea, Epic River began building it onto the platform.
Co-founder and CEO Jeff Grobaski said the product went to market in 2015, gaining popularity and clients, including UCHealth, over the next three years.
As the company looks to attract more health care providers to the platform, Epic River announced that it has closed a $1.75 million seed round, led by The Innosphere Fund.
The Innosphere Fund is a seed-stage venture capital fund that leads seed-stage investment rounds in companies that are likely to achieve a near-term exit through a corporate acquisition, and require smaller amounts of capital to achieve growth milestones.
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"With the support of our investors, we are excited to expand our platform to ensure all health care providers have access to the most efficient and cost-effective means of solving the patient pay dilemma," Grobaski said. "This is a great opportunity for community and regional financial institutions to leverage our platform to help health care providers in their community address a growing problem."
With Epic River’s platform, every patient is eligible for a loan and can choose a monthly payment option that best fits their budget. Neither the patient, nor the provider, pay any additional fees.
“If the patient is going to put their bill on a credit card and not pay it off, its wildly better to take out a loan and pay the loan down with our service,” Grobaski said.
The company currently has 20 full-time employees and has plans to hire an additional five employees as a result of the round. Grobaski said the vast majority of this funding will be put towards marketing and sales efforts to get the platform in front of providers.
