New Health Insurance Portal Simplifies Enrollment for Small Firms

San Francisco, Calif.-based Group Hub, a portal that simplifies the health insurance enrollment process for small- and medium-size companies, is one of seven health care-related start ups chosen by Blueprint Health accelerator for its winter class, in an announcement made Feb. 5.

The company, which launched in mid-2014 in the classic basement-start up model, works with health insurance brokers who serve small to midsize companies with less than 100 employees. The Group Hub portal allows brokers to immediately enroll and validate hundreds of applications and to comply with HIPAA electronic compliance mandates that w

ill become effective in 2016.

Since its launch, the company has signed up brokers who represent 30,000 companies and 600,000 people. The founders have amassed $500,000 in seed capital.

Group Hub was chosen for Blueprint Health accelerator’s Winter 2015 round from a pool of more than 300 applicants, Jean-Luc Neptune, executive director of the Bluprint Health accelerator, told India-West.

“Small and mid-size employers are still the driver of the health insurance market,” said Neptune, noting that 60 million companies across the nation had fewer than 100 employees. Currently, employers and brokers are heavily paper-based, said Neptune, who is a physician. “Group Hub provides a tool for efficiency,” he said, noting that he chooses health care start-ups for the three-month accelerator program that have talented founders with a variety of skills “attacking a real market where there is a real opportunity.” Through the accelerator program, start-ups are connected to mentor networks and investor networks and typically emerge with a second round of funding, said Neptune.

Kunal Mukherjee, operations director and co-founder of Group Hub, told India-West that the company aims to provide health care access to more Americans, the first step in preventing chronic conditions.

“The onerous, eligibility- based, model of healthcare that we have all dealt with is designed to be an obstacle course, discouraging medical attention until it is catastrophic,” he stated.

Mukherjee’s own battle with the U.S.’s Herculean health insurance system came as he tried to get benefits for his Indian American parents. The family struggled to navigate the complex system of enrolling for health insurance after Mukherjee’s mother suffered a stroke.

His elderly parents returned to India in 2012, “tired of humiliating interrogation by government agencies to show eligibility for any medical attention,” for what had now become a chronic condition, said the Indian American. Both parents died a year after returning to India.

GroupHub works with brokers serving companies with less than 100 employees. Mukherjee and his partners Allen Byerly, a software engineer, and Gabriel Roybal, a molecular biologist, launched Group Hub in Mukherjee’s basement, in classic start-up mode. The team waterproofed their flooded workspace, moved boxes around, got a white board and an Ikea desk to brainstorm, make cold calls and apply to incubator programs.

“We trusted in Providence, never taking any of this too seriously but playing it day by day,” said Mukherjee, whose debut novel, “My Magical Palace,” was released the previous year.

Roybal, chief of business development, told India-West that Group Hub was launched with the belief that the current health care insurance model is broken. After an abrupt personal health care crisis in 2013, Roybal had to quit his job while receiving medical treatment.

“Facing long-term management of a chronic illness, I suddenly faced a complicated and time consuming health insurance marketplace. I knew that health insurance did not need to be this complicated, and that many other people were facing similar challenges,” said Roybal. “I committed myself to identifying a way that I could use my professional and personal experience to disrupt the existing insurance marketplace.”

Byerly, chief of product development, noted there are a number of competitors in the same market, but added: 

“We are the first electronic enrollment product designed exclusively for insurance brokers that is truly compliant with all the laws and regulations and completely automates the process.”“To the consumer we help individuals select the best benefits options for their needs and make it super easy and simple to enroll in those benefits,” said Byerly. “The vision of the company is to provide a single place for anyone to select, enroll, and then manage all of their benefits and get the most out of them and live a healthier and wealthier life,” he said.

[Source: http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/new-health-insurance-portal-simplifies-enrollment-for-small-firms/article_2f951588-b3b3-11e4-8060-7f099026fa34.html]