When my co-founders Tobias, Ariel, and I decided to start PayZen to fight the healthcare affordability crisis, a few things became evident to us. 1. What we’re trying to do is important. 2. We believe we’re the right team for the challenge. 3. What we’re trying to do is hard — very hard!
And as I look back on those initial observations, I can’t help but feel more validated now than ever before.
So first off, why is PayZen important? The answer is simple: we’re increasing access to healthcare for all Americans and making a real, positive impact on the lives of thousands of people. At the same time, we’re helping medical providers provide essential care to their patients without the risk, hardship, costs, and added complexity of extending financial products to patients.
Today is an important day in PayZen’s journey. We’re excited to announce our latest funding round. We’re overjoyed to have SignalFire as a lead investor and Chris Scoggins as a board member as part of this round. What makes me so proud is that on top of SignalFire, we were able to add 7wire Ventures and Link Ventures as investors and have all of our existing investors participate. I am gratified in the confidence of knowing that our investors add to our mission in meaningful ways through their networks and deep healthcare, fintech, and data science expertise. We will use this new funding to fuel our growth, invest in our platform, and extend our products to help more and more people.
In times like these, I find it helpful to reflect on the last two years to truly appreciate all we learned and accomplished as a team.
“Healthcare is being consumerized”. We hear this statement nonstop. But, what does it mean in reality? It means that more of the overall payment responsibility is rapidly shifting to patients. That burden doubled in both of the last two decades and is predicted to double again in the next decade. Unpaid medical bills are one of the leading reasons for negative credit score impact in the U.S and are still the #1 reason for personal bankruptcy. Medical costs are unlike other kinds of costs because people often cannot choose whether to incur them. A less wealthy person may choose to buy a less expensive car than their richer neighbor, but if they have a heart attack and need surgery, they can’t choose to get a lower bill.
PayZen can help because it’s the first Affordability Financing Platform, and we’re charting a new path in this massive $1.3T market. We’ve built an open, transparent, and data-driven technology platform that solves the affordability problem for 100% of patients and medical providers. Our platform requires no integration and operates autonomously. We inform patients pre-service or post-service about our payment options and give them peace of mind. We then use tens of thousands of data factors and AI to make sure we’re offering patients payment options they can afford. The whole process including underwriting, decisioning and enrollment take less than a minute. The exciting challenge of building an Affordability Financing platform is that it needs to be a win for everyone. PayZen allows 100% of patients to enroll and always offers a no-interest and no-fee product, while making sure healthcare providers get paid properly.
Healthcare is a costly, complex, and massive ecosystem. PayZen is here to tackle the crisis of affordability; our data already shows that more people will pay their medical bills, and more people will access health services if they know the cost will be affordable.
Our funding announcement today is an exciting next step for PayZen, but it merely represents a new chapter in our story. We’re executing at lightspeed and looking for top talent to join us in engineering, data science, sales, business development, and operations. If you want to make a positive impact on healthcare affordability, come join us! PayZen is where you’ll do well by doing good!
