Health startup Vitals, formerly a website recommending inexpensive and highly-rated medical care, has acquired smaller health startup Compass to offer direct cash incentives to consumers for choosing to have procedures at health facilities preferred by their employers and health plans, according to a report from Forbes.
When a patient's health plan saves money from that patient's choice of facility, the patient will receive a cut of the savings. On average, the savings is about $500 per encounter, according to Vitals cofounder Michael Rothschild, who was quoted in the report.
Vitals has raised more than $40 million in funding in pursuit of its mission to date from firms such as Athena, Cardinal Partners, Greycroft, Milestone and Venture Partners.
Before the acquisition, Vitals employed about 150 people and saw more than 10 million consumers per month on its site. Compass, in contrast, was a 20 person company and had reached about 70,000 people. While conditions of the acquisition weren't disclosed, most of Compass' team will be joining Vitals, according to the report.
Now, Vitals plans to offer its new product to people in a few states with large number of people on health plans that are also involved with the startup, such as Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. By acquiring the company, Vitals hopes to raise its profile in the price transparency company space to compete with better-known companies such as Castlight, according to the report.
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