Getting transportation to and from medical appointments can be a problem for some people, and a costly one for the healthcare system.
“One of the biggest costs for a hospital or health system is when a patient does not show up to an appointment,” said Ankit Mathur, the co-founder and chief technology officer of RoundTrip, a startup company that is trying to offer a solution.
“A lot of times, it is because the patient does not have access to a reliable transportation system,” he said. “We partner with a lot of hospitals and healthcare organizations and essentially help them coordinate transportation for patients.”
RoundTrip, which has offices in Richmond and in Philadelphia, has developed a technology platform that enables healthcare providers to book rides for patients to and from medical appointments from a network of about 200 credentialed medical transportation providers.
The company, founded in 2016, was a participant last fall in Lighthouse Labs, a Richmond-based accelerator program that provides mentoring for startup companies.
“In one year, we have grown quite a bit,” said Mathur, who works in the company’s Richmond office in Scott’s Addition, where a team of seven people does most of its product development and design work. Operations are run in Philadelphia, where co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Switaj works.
RoundTrip is now partnering with healthcare providers in 20 states, including Mount Sinai Health System in New York, Cooper University Health System in New Jersey and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. In the Richmond area, the company is participating in GRTC Transit System’s CARE On-Demand, a pilot program to transport disabled passengers.
In March, RoundTrip raised $1.9 million in an initial seed round financing from four key institutional investors.
One of RoundTrip’s newest customers is Mind Peace Clinics, which has offices in Richmond and Arlington that provide ketamine infusions for patients suffering from depression of post-traumatic stress disorder. After their treatment, patients recover from mild after-effects, making it unsafe for them to drive themselves home.
Mind Peace Clinics has been using RoundTrip’s platform to book rides for some of its patents for several months. “We have had good success with them coordinating transport of our patients both before and after their appointments,” said Dr. Patrick A. Oliver, medical director of Mind Peace Clinics. “The patients like and appreciate it. They [RoundTrip], do automatic billing to insurance companies, which very helpful.”