Two San Francisco-based digital health companies are partnering to help employers save a little bit of the $700 billion they collectively spend on healthcare for employees each year.
Castlight Health, which builds information-rich healthcare product marketplaces for large employers, is partnering with Grand Rounds, which offers consumers access to the nation’s top-rated medical specialists.
In Castlight’s marketplaces employees can select doctors and health services based on cost and quality. With the partnership, Grand Rounds will act as a “benefits supplement” that employees of Castlight’s large employer clients can access. Castlight hopes that Grand Rounds will save employers (many of which are self-insured) money by giving employees access to better diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes.
Grand Rounds offers three main products. Grand Rounds Opinions lets patients get a second opinion on a diagnosis or treatment plan from some of the top specialists around the country. Grand Rounds Office Visits is a referral service that pairs consumers with the top physicians in their area and sets up an appointment. Grand Rounds STAT allows people hospitalized for a serious illness to connect their doctors with top medical specialists around the country to discuss diagnoses and treatment plans.
“Top quality medical care shouldn’t be reserved only for the wealthy; it should be available to everyone, no matter where they are in their healthcare cycle,” says Ground Rounds CEO Owen Tripp in a statement. “By ensuring that anyone, anywhere, has the ability to see a medical specialist regardless of geography, Grand Rounds is able to save time, money, and lives. Castlight can help us accelerate our already rapid growth and support our mission to deliver positive healthcare outcomes to patients worldwide.”
Above: A group of Castlight Health employees in the company’s San Francisco office.
Castlight’s Enterprise Healthcare Cloud is a set of cloud-based applications delivered software-as-a-service-style to users on web browsers or mobile devices. Grand Rounds is just one of the companies Castlight’s technology platform integrates with. Other partners include telehealth providers, health savings account providers, on-site clinic providers, and other expert opinion services. These partner services are all delivered to employees through the Castlight platform.
Castlight held a much-hyped IPO on March 14. The company priced its $200 million IPO at $16 a share, valuing Castlight at about $1.4 billion. Shares hit nearly $40 on the first day of trading.
Grand Rounds was founded in 2011 and has raised $11 million in funding to date, most of which came from a $10 million round led by Venrock.
