Flume Health is bringing transparency to healthcare coverage

As we established at this month’s Enterprise VC Fundraising Trends panel, momentum matters.

Back in August, I met with Flume Health’s founder, Cedric Kovacs-Johnson, and was immediately impressed by his thoughtful approach to addressing the problems self-insured employers face with selecting healthcare coverage. Healthcare can be tricky; often times, it’s a vertical wrought with long sales cycles and nuanced relationships between key stakeholders. Though it’s ripe with opportunity, given the challenges, I usually only invest when the founder has had relevant prior experience. But as I got to know Cedric (and vice versa) over the next six months, and watched him gain traction and onboard smart strategic hires, we invested.

We all come to the table with biases, and this was a reminder to periodically make sure they aren’t hindering our decision making. Cedric’s ability to navigate this new terrain, his attention to detail, and Flume Health’s initial customer momentum proved he could excel in a complicated vertical. His early emphasis on team building sealed the deal because, at this stage, it’s just as much about the people as it is the business.

We are so proud of this ambitious, driven team, and look forward to the significant change Flume Health will bring to what’s currently a dismal landscape for employers and employees alike.

Here’s what you should know about the company…

At its core: A digital health plan administrator for modern self-insured employers.

Its mission: Bring transparency into the opaque market of health plan administration.

How: Flume Health runs the necessary stack of insurance administration services independently as a platform with transparent prices. This mode prioritizes patients and providers, eliminating the need for collections agencies, billing companies, and the staffing costs associated with cumbersome claims processing.

Why now: Today, over 80% of companies with 500+ employees have switched to self-insurance to avoid rising healthcare premiums, with 12,000 more joining them every year. New plans are often purchased from the same legacy insurance companies they sought to avoid, trapping them in a vicious lose-lose cycle where the patient and employer eat the costs.

The “it” factor: Flume Pay enables employer plans to pay medical claims at the time of service — usually in less than 72 hours. By working directly with providers to get cash prices for services, patients avoid surprise bills and know what they’re paying before an appointment.

Please join me in welcoming Flume Health to the Primary family. The team here can’t wait to support Cedric and his team as Flume Health continues to bring transparent healthcare coverage to self-insured employers and their employees. For more on the announcement, head over to TechCrunch, and check out Flume Health here.

— Crissy Costa