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Phyzit Growth Relieving Docs’ TCM Headaches

3 min read

Many doctors consider the reimbursement process for transitional care management to be a headache, and Little Rock tech startup Phyzit has prescribed what looks like a cure. Doctors across the country are signing up for some of that relief.

TCM is the transitional care process through which physicians track patients’ progress during the 30 days after which they are discharged from the hospital or a hospital-like setting. Phyzit developed a cloud-based software app that tracks the steps involved in the TCM process for doctors’ offices, tracking each patient in the process through a dashboard system, reminding offices of important deadlines and providing billing reports. In expanded beta testing, the app helped doctors’ offices create an average of $1,400 in new revenue per provider per month and decreased hospital readmissions by 66 percent.

The startup was co-founded last year by Little Rock pediatric urologist Dr. Stephen Canon and has grown to include four full-time employees, including new President Mike Blanchat, who most recently led A Briggs Passport & Visa Expeditors. The Phyzit TCM app is in about 20 Arkansas doctors’ offices (with more on the way) and recently expanded to large groups in Albany, New York; Birmingham, Alabama; and Manalapan, New Jersey. That places Phyzit in five total states with deals pending in others.

This recent growth required Phyzit to begin its second funding round to support the national rollout. Early on, Phyzit was self-funded and took advantage of state credits, matching funds and other resources such as Innovate Arkansas. Plus, it received input and assistance from Jeff Stinson, director of the Fund for Arkansas’ Future and the Arkansas Innovation Fund, serial entrepreneur/investor Kristian Andersen of Conway, and Jeff Fox of the Circumference Group.

And the startup recently added a couple of industry big-hitters to its board of advisers: Bruce Brandes, managing director at Martin Ventures of Nashville, Tennessee, and Dr. Cameron Powell, chief medical officer and co-founder of AirStrip Technologies of San Antonio.

Phyzit was designed to solve a real problem: About one in five patients discharged from the hospital is readmitted within 30 days, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Federal billing requirements related to TCM can be complicated and cumbersome, Blanchat said, and clinics often miss out on reimbursements because specific requirements aren’t met. He believes the Phyzit app can help keep patients at home and doctors’ offices operating more efficiently.

“Phyzit has a tremendous amount of potential to help,” Blanchat said.

As the startup expands, it’s targeting larger groups and more specialists. Canon said the team realized the app didn’t have to be limited to general practices. “It can extend to cardiologists and other specialists,” he said. “Specialty practices are quick adopters of new technology and business opportunities.”

Cold calls, word-of-mouth and social media have been the primary promotion vehicles for the company so far, but it plans to more aggressively engage the local tech community to help spread the word. Phyzit will be hosting webinars this fall related to transitional care management, and team members will be speaking to tech groups.

Canon, who presented at Little Rock’s first TEDx event this past summer, will speak to the Northwest Arkansas Tech Council on Nov. 10, and Phyzit Chief Privacy Officer Stewart Whaley will speak at Little Rock Tech Fest on Oct. 16.

Tech Cetera

• Jeff Dean, chief operating officer for the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, has been elected vice president of the southern region for the National Association of State Technology Directors. He’ll serve through August 2016.

• Fayetteville’s Neo was one of 25 tech startups from across the country selected for the 2015 CTIA Startup Lab in Washington, which ran over four days earlier this month. A graduate of the 2014 ARK Challenge summer accelerator program, Neo provides automated hacker protection.

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