Ride Health plans to use $6.2M in funding to aid expansion

Ride Health is aiming to build out its real-time transportation coordination platform to get patients to and from medical appointments.


Ride Health is aiming to build out its real-time transportation coordination platform to get patients to and from medical appointments.

The company recently announced that it has raised $6.2 million to expand its mission to ensure patients have access to healthcare services. Activate Venture Partners, Newark Venture Partners, Anthro Ventures, BioAdvance, Leading Edge Ventures and Startup Heath participated in the latest round of funding.

Transportation plays a major role in lowering the cost of healthcare, notes Todd Peitri, managing partner at investment firm Activate Venture Partners. “Ride Health empowers healthcare providers, payers and patients to leverage technology and data to improve health outcomes at a lower cost,” he adds.

Ridesharing matches a person who’s using a rideshare mobile app with a nearby driver who will take the person where they want to go.

Ride Health’s platform supports established ridesharing services such as Lyft and Uber, as well as taxicabs and “mom-and-pop” companies that use their own cars to transport patients. These various entities work with each other and with healthcare providers and hospitals. These facilities can lose money from missed patient appointments, as well as having to keep patients who don’t have a way to get home.

The Ride Health platform connects providers, health insurers, ambulances and wheelchair-accessible vehicles, mapping each patient’s needs and preferences and integrating with dispatch, clinical and customer relationship management personnel, by tracking rides in real time.


“Healthcare organizations are increasingly recognizing the critical role that transportation plays in improving access to care and outcomes, but traditional approaches to medical transportation fail patients and providers on a daily basis,” says Imran Cronk, CEO at Ride Health.

Penn Medicine in Philadelphia considers ride-sharing services to be an important social determinant of health. The provider uses Ride Health to arrange rides for patients, reducing inpatient stays by an average of six hours. “It can take three buses and an hour for a patient to travel three miles,” says Roy Rosin, chief innovation officer at Penn Medicine. “That’s a significant obstacle that many patients, especially those low-income or mobility-challenged, can’t overcome.”

Ride Health, Rosin adds, has delivered a 98 percent rate of on-time arrivals at Penn Medicine, dramatically cutting the cost of a delay.

Now, Ride Health is supporting transportation benefit management for health plans in 10 states to optimize utilization across transportation modes such as mileage reimbursement, public transit, ride-hailing wheelchair-accessible vehicles and ambulances. Under the new program for insurers, Ride Health handles roster management, eligibility screening for health plan members, and ride scheduling via a self-service member portal.

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