CHICAGO — At the 2024 AGA Tech Summit, held April 11-12 at the Chicago headquarters of MATTER, a global healthcare startup incubator, five companies made their pitch to be the winner of the Shark Tank competition that recognizes an outstanding tech start up in the gastroenterology field.
After the companies’ rapid-fire pitches and Q&A sessions, four judges convened to determine a winner and returned to make an announcement.
The winner was Arithmedics, which uses AI technology to automate billing codes. Founder Venthan Elango, PhD, has worked as a software engineer at Google, Urban Engines, and Georgia Tech, and his wife of 17 years is Renumathy Dhanasekaran, MD, PhD, a gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at Stanford (California) University.
Their marriage has brought a unique perspective, according to Dr. Elango. “There isn’t a single day that goes by when she talks to me about the inefficiencies in healthcare, and then I say, ‘this can be easily solved with a software solution,’ ” he said.
Arithmedics
Dr. Venthan Elango
When they decided to try a start-up, the two initiated conversations with healthcare providers to identify a key unmet need. “The common recurring theme was that medical billing was a problem, because of [insufficient] institutional knowledge, staff shortage, and inconsistencies with the payers,” said Dr. Elango. During their presentation, the two noted that about 80% of claims include at least one coding error, and this leads to an estimated $125 billion in annual losses.
Generative AI presented a solution. “Automating the medical billing code [determination] from a clinical record became 10 times easier than what it was before. So I thought, I can build a product that actually brings in augmented analytics and generative AI and do something that is tremendously useful to physicians,” he said.
The future goal is to make life easier for healthcare providers, according to Dr. Dhanasekaran. “As physicians, we went into medicine to talk with patients, but a lot of us are just typing away when patients are sitting in the room, because there are all of these requirements for documentation to get the billing so that we can get paid at the end of the day,” she said.
Stanford University
Dr. Renu Dhanasekaran
Arithmedics aims to initially target small-group medical practices that are tech savvy. They will analyze a year’s worth of claims for errors and resubmit claims for the past 3 months and split any additional revenue that ensues. They plan to expand to revenue cycle management companies and hospital systems. On the technology side, they will expand to data intelligence and integrate with electronic health records, and ultimately plan to charge 1%-2% of revenue.
The other Shark Tank finalists were:
- Aspero Medical: Balloon overtube that maximizes frictional properties to improve mucosal wall traction and anchoring consistency. (Voted ‘fan favorite’ by AGA Tech Summit attendees)
- Aurora Medical Technologies: Minimally invasive, guided, tissue-anchoring suturing system for complex endoscopic procedures.
- Ergami Endoscopy: Flexible overtube capable of automatic insertion and fixation in the colon, which could potentially eliminate sedation and prevent endoscopic injuries to the physician.
- Lazurite: Wireless surgical camera that eliminates the need for light or video cables, avoiding the associated fire, trip, and contamination hazards.
