{"id":39678,"date":"2023-10-20T15:03:48","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/health-engine-gets-fit-for-new-funding-round-shrugs-off-budgets-gp-co-payment-hit-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:03:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:03:48","slug":"health-engine-gets-fit-for-new-funding-round-shrugs-off-budgets-gp-co-payment-hit-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/health-engine-gets-fit-for-new-funding-round-shrugs-off-budgets-gp-co-payment-hit-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Engine gets fit for new funding round, shrugs off budget\u2019s GP co-payment hit – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Online health directory and booking service HealthEngine<\/a> has announced an imminent B series funding round.<\/p>\n

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HealthEngine enables patients to quickly find health practitioners in their area and book appointments in available timeslots online.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a free service for patients and makes its money by charging a fee for every new customer referred to clinics, and for listing in its directory.<\/p>\n

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The B series funding round follows a $10.4 million investment by Telstra and Seven West Media a year ago.<\/p>\n

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HealthEngine CEO Dr Marcus Tan says the company\u2019s financial situation means it doesn\u2019t necessarily need the money, but he and the board felt it was important to continue to grow fast and the funds will enable it to do that.<\/p>\n

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The company is looking for between $5 million and $10 million to help rapidly expand the number of practitioners using the service.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re fairly happy with the demand side, which has grown significantly over the last 12 months,\u2019\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re really giving patients a lot of choice across all the different states.<\/p>\n

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\u201cObviously the limitations that we have are kind of similar to the problems across all of health. There are pockets where the distribution isn\u2019t very good.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAreas where the demand for services is relatively low compared to the amount of services that are there, places like the inner city, from that perspective we add more value by helping practices get new patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Currently, 600,000 Australians visit the HealthEngine website every month to find and book appointments with doctors, dentists, physiotherapists, chiropractors and psychologists.<\/p>\n

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They make up a total of over 3000 health practitioners from 1000 health practices that use the service and Tan says HealthEngine is hoping to double that figure in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are committed to bringing even more health practices onto the HealthEngine platform to give Australians everywhere the greatest selection of available appointments possible,\u2019\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe main reason we are doing this is because we want to give patients the best possible experience when they\u2019re sick and need to see a doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Tan says whatever challenges face the medical sector, HealthEngine must inevitably face too, but he doesn\u2019t expect the federal government\u2019s new $7 co-payment policy for trips to the doctor will negatively affect HealthEngine.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe political winds around health are always a bit tricky, we\u2019re always going to be impacted by these sorts of things, but we don\u2019t think co-payments will affect our business at all,\u2019\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

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HealthEngine has added Telstra Group managing director, media and marketing, Mark Buckman to its board, which includes HealthEngine chairman and non-executive director of carsales.com.au Pat O\u2019Sullivan, Seven West Media group COO Nick Chan and Telstra Ventures Australia managing director Matthew Koertge.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMark brings a great deal of value to the business as we focus on growing market share,\u2019\u2019 O\u2019Sullivan says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Online health directory and booking service HealthEngine has announced an imminent B series funding round. \u00a0 HealthEngine enables patients to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39678"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}