A New York City startup that’s working to help employers and insurers root out misdiagnoses and unnecessary treatment just raised $23.5 million in funding to further fuel its growth.
Covera Health announced this latest investment on Jan. 9, noting that it will use the funds to speed up research and development of tools to measure the impact of diagnostic errors in radiology. The company made headlines last year when it partnered with Walmart to help its 1 million-plus covered employees “avoid misguided and unnecessary treatment based on inaccurate radiology diagnoses.”
Officials said the cash infusion will also allow Covera to expand its national Radiology Centers of Excellence program, which helps insurers and employers like Walmart pinpoint high-quality readers.
“We’re initially focused on and have seen great success within the field of radiology,” Covera founder and CEO, Ron Vianu said in a statement. "Despite being viewed as a commodity, the specialty exhibits meaningful variability such that a patient undergoing an MRI or CT scan, two common tests, may receive a completely different diagnosis from different providers for the very same condition. Such errors can have a devastating impact on patient outcomes.”
The Series B financing comes by way of New York-based venture capital firm Insight Partners, along with other existing vendors. Covera notes that its analytics platform for radiology is now operating in all 50 states, and has already demonstrated success reducing imaging misdiagnoses while “lowering wasted healthcare spend.”
Covera also announced in October that it was filling out its executive team and advisory board to include expertise from several big-name healthcare players.
Marty Stempniak has covered healthcare since 2012, with his byline appearing in the American Hospital Association's member magazine, Modern Healthcare and McKnight's. Prior to that, he wrote about village government and local business for his hometown newspaper in Oak Park, Illinois. He won a Peter Lisagor and Gold EXCEL awards in 2017 for his coverage of the opioid epidemic.