I’ve talked frequently about the need for more personalization and access to the right specialists in mental health and substance use care. Personally, I recall the struggles my family faced with finding an adolescent OCD and anxiety specialist. This week, we have an exciting interview with one company who is making leaps and bounds towards improving provider data accuracy to support patients in getting the exact right care they need. Ribbon Health just raised $43.5 million in series B financing from General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), BoxGroup, Rock Health and an investment from Sachin Jain, president and CEO of SCAN Health Plan. Join me for an exclusive interview with Ribbon Health and some of their investors in the blog: 

What is Ribbon Health and what is some of the work you're doing in behavioral health?

Ribbon Health offers the most comprehensive, accurate API data platform that is the infrastructure for a future where every patient care decision is convenient, cost-effective, and high-quality. Built to integrate seamlessly into existing healthcare workflows, Ribbon offers a reliable and straightforward way for health plans, providers, and digital health solutions to develop and maintain accurate provider directories and competitive networks, simplify referral management, and ensure efficient care navigation — all in one platform.

At Ribbon we power more intuitive provider searches and better matches between patients and behavioral health specialists. As part of our Focus Areas data set, we provide information on almost 500,000 behavioral health specialists, including the type of specialists, conditions they treat, and treatments they offer. One example would be someone who treats sleep disorders and also conducts sleep studies - this is something very detailed that would be hard to find without Ribbon's data. In addition, data on behavioral health specialists is often inaccurate, and Ribbon seeks to get people to not only find the right care, but also show up at the right place.

You have some big news! Please tell us more! 

We are incredibly proud and excited to share our $43.5MM Series B funding round, led by General Catalyst and joined by previous and new investors that include a16z, BoxGroup, Rock Health, and Sachin Jain. 

This funding will enable us to accelerate and scale Ribbon Health, creating even more value for our partners with exceptional talent and technology. We will expand our reach across health plans, provider organizations, and digital health solutions. Ribbon will improve the health plan member experience with enhanced provider matching and data management and strengthen health plans’ competitive moat by delivering unique insights on network adequacy and design. Ribbon will continue to solve key navigation and referral challenges, improve care operations, and drive meaningful growth for our customers. Importantly, by investing in our platform’s distribution and ease of use, Ribbon will seek to eliminate the problem of data inaccuracy altogether and ultimately partner with all healthcare companies that seek to build solutions that drive positive patient experiences and better healthcare outcomes.Ultimately, Ribbon will become the connective tissue that allows patients to find the care they need across any touchpoint in the healthcare system.

Accurate provider data, delivered through our flexible and intuitive API data platform, is the infrastructure for a future where every care decision is convenient, cost-effective, and high-quality. Delivering on these goals will require an experienced, passionate team, and so today, we say – join us. We’re ready to simplify healthcare.

Interested in Ribbon’s data? Contact us to learn how we can help.

Tell us about why you partnered with these investors in particular and what you look forward to for the future?

We are excited to have Holly Maloney, Managing Director at General Catalyst, join the Ribbon board given her strong connection and dedication to our mission and vision. "Ribbon is on a path to power the next generation of care navigation for both patients and referring clinicians,” said Holly Maloney, managing director at General Catalyst. “What Ribbon Health has built is not only a leading healthcare data platform that solves the decades-old issue of not being able to easily find the highest quality and most affordable clinician but a mission-driven culture that has set them up to scale and succeed. General Catalyst is thrilled to be leading Ribbon’s Series B, as they share our vision of healthcare as a powerful, connected ecosystem.”

We are also thrilled to have continued investment from Julie Yoo, General Partner at a16z, who is equally as dedicated. "That's one of the attractive factors or dimensions of infrastructure bets is that you truly get an index on what’s happening across healthcare. One of the reasons that Ribbon stood out to us was its ability to create network effects. Every single day, every single minute that organizations use Ribbon, the data gets better and better. And, it almost becomes one of the only sources of truth, because there really is no source of truth for provider data at a national scale,” said Yoo.

We look forward to partnering with all of our investors to help grow and scale Ribbon into the future.