Physera, an app-based platform for musculoskeletal exercises and remote consultations with physical therapists, has raised $8 million in a Series A round led by BlueCross Blueshield Venture Partners.
The company has now raised a total of $10 million. Other funders, either in this round or previously, include Halle Tecco of Rock Health, Innovation Endeavors, Lux Capital, Expa, Slow Ventures, iD Ventures, J-Angels, and other unnamed angel investors.
Physera’s app, available for free on Android and iOS, offers a range of exercises to help users reduce musculoskeletal pain, and each exercise is demonstrated with in-app animations, voice prompts, and other guidance.
For customers who are employers, though, Physera’s HIPAA-compliant platform’s full offerings include telehealth consultations with vetted physical therapists, who will develop personalized exercise plans for users and provide continued support. The employer version of the app can even cover employee onboarding, reporting, and, if necessary, delivery of portable exercise equipment to employees’ homes.
According to Physera’s website, its platform holes a program adherence rate of 75 percent, a participant medical spend reduction of more than 50 percent, and a 90-plus percent satisfaction rating among participants.
“Our goal was to find the touch points and treatments that help people stay healthy and empower them to take care into their own hands. We picked musculoskeletal care as a starting point because of its prevalence and high cost to patients in the form of unnecessary treatments,” Physera co-founder and CEO Dan Rubenstein wrote in a blog post announcing the funding. “Given the cost-effectiveness of our treatments in pre-empting avoidable procedures, self-insured employers and insurance companies are excited to deploy our program.”
“Physera’s approach to personalized musculoskeletal (MSK) care will change the way pain is treated,” said Physera board member Michael Spadafore. “Over 100 million people in Ameica suffer from musculoskeletal pain. Few get the care they need because of inconvenience, lack of access to physical therapists, and the absence of well-defined MSK clinical pathways, all of which in turn contribute to over-prescribed opioids and unnecessary surgeries. We are eager to join Physera in reimagining MSK care.”
The company didn’t provide any ideas about its future direction, outside of saying that the funding was going to general scaling and ongoing updates to the program.
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