VC, deals, health care

Qliance Raises $4M To Expand New Primary Care Model, Circumvent Health Insurers

Luke Timmerman 7/7/09

Qliance Medical Management, the Seattle-based company that doesn’t accept health insurance for primary care medical services, has raised $4 million in venture capital to expand its practice in Washington and to other states around the country.

The financing was led by Seattle-based Second Avenue Partners, and also included New Atlantic Ventures and Clear Fir Partners. Qliance, founded in 2006, has now raised a total of $7.5 million since it started.

We first profiled Qliance back in December. The company is pursuing a simple and disruptive idea to the U.S. healthcare system. It runs what it calls a “direct practice” in downtown Seattle, which freezes out health insurers and deals directly with patients. The patient hands over a credit card, and agrees to pay a $39 to $79 monthly membership fee to Qliance for unrestricted use of its primary care medical services. The model allows Qliance to avoid spending excessive time haggling with insurers, and lets the doctors see fewer patients. That frees up the company’s physicians to spend 30 to 60 minutes with each patient instead of less than 15 minutes for their peers who accept insurance, CEO Norm Wu said in our original profile.

“We see the Qliance direct primary care model as an important transformational option to health care reform that is easily scalable for other communities across the U.S.,” said Nick Hanauer, managing partner of Second Avenue Partners, in a statement. “Their innovative health care model reduces costs dramatically for individuals and businesses while delivering exceptional care and access for patients.”

The Qliance model doesn’t cover all the specialized services that some patients …Next Page »

Luke Timmerman is the National Biotechnology Editor for Xconomy. You can e-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com, call 206-624-2374, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ldtimmerman.