A new health care provider that will let patients schedule and pay through a mobile app and then have a licensed clinician show up at their door to provide in-home urgent or primary care is coming to the Milwaukee area.
Pivotal Health, founded in Middleton last year, will begin seeing Milwaukee-area patients on Dec. 1, the company's co-founder and CEO Sal Braico said.
The health technology startup recently closed a $1.3 million seed round led by Cleveland's Comeback Capital, an early-stage venture fund focused on companies outside of the coastal technology hubs. Madison's Symphony Alpha Ventures LLC was also a large backer, and several angel investors — around half of which are in Wisconsin — also participated, Braico said.
Braico, who has had a nearly 20-year career in health technology, said the company is aiming to make accessing health care as easy as ordering items on Amazon.
But unlike telehealth providers, Pivotal is preserving in-person health visits, allowing patients to have face-to-face time with clinicians and get procedures and tests done as needed.
"What we're trying to do is to really maintain that high-quality, high-touch patient visit and then try to automate everything else around it so that we protect that clinician-to-patient time," Braico said.
With plans to grow to at least four or five other Midwest markets next year, Pivotal Health has begun raising a $10 million Series A round, Braico said. The company's model is highly scalable because it automates back-end functions such as scheduling, billing and payment processing, he said.
Having launched in the Madison area in April, Pivotal Health is already generating and growing revenue, Braico said. Its October revenue was double that of September, which was four times higher than in August, he said.
Since its launch, Pivotal Health's patients have been scheduling appointments online or by phone. It's planning to roll out its mobile app within days, Braico said.
Insurers including Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana and Medicare cover Pivotal Health. The app's proprietary triage and price transparency tools will estimate patients' out-of-pocket costs based on questions they answer about their health complaints, and patients will be able to pay directly through the app with a credit card, Braico said.
Pivotal Health has a small Menomonee Falls location where clinicians will have offices, store supplies and park Pivotal-branded cars, Braico said.
Along with Braico, the company's co-founders are Pete Johnson, who serves as the chief operating officer, and Dr. Andrew Culp, Pivotal's chief medical officer and an emergency physician.
While Culp holds a doctor of medicine, most of Pivotal Health's licensed clinicians are nurse practitioners or physicians assistants, Braico said. The company currently has a total of 15 employees, including 10 clinicians, and plans to expand to around 40 team members in the next year, Braico said.
