By Anna Lardinois
Startup Storyteller
According to the National Safety Council, there were 55.4 million injuries and more than 200,000 preventable deaths in the United States in 2020. Many of those injuries will become personal injury claims. Approximately 95% of these claims are settled out of court and provide an estimated $37.5 billion in revenue for personal injury attorneys.
Accidents are big business for both medical and legal practices, but the partnerships are often complicated and labor intensive. CaseConnectMD plans to change that.
Company co-founder and CEO Robert Kebbekus has more than 20 years of experience working in the business side of healthcare and banking. While working in revenue cycle management for doctors, he noticed, “when we were dealing with injury claims of any sort, this gap would occur where we wouldn’t get paid because the case hasn’t settled and it would sit out there for months, occasionally years. “
Those delays in payment, coupled with the documentation required in personal injury claims, made caring for patients involved in litigation undesirable clients.
“The doctors basically said, ‘if I have an option, I don’t want to take any of these personal injury cases because I don’t want to wait a year or two to get paid — or never get paid,” Kebbekus said.
He saw that the standard process for dealing with injury claims did not benefit anyone. Attorneys had a very limited pool of doctors to choose from for their clients’ care. Medical practices were missing out on a significant number of revenue-generating patients due to bureaucratic delays. In that dilemma, Kebbekus saw opportunity.
Founded in 2021, CaseConnectMD is a software platform that connects personal injury law practices with medical providers who treat patients involved in personal injury claims. The software does more than act as a portal between businesses, it is also a tool to collect patient data. When developing the product, Kebbekus said the team decided to “develop a software platform that allows us to easily get (patient medical) information to the law firms, so we become a mini EMR (electronic medical records) for that particular case. It’s a central repository for all parties involved in the case.”
Perhaps the most groundbreaking service offered by CaseConnectMD is that it allows medical practices to treat injury claims patients without payment delays.
Kebbekus explains, “The doctor is paid like he would be with a ‘normal’ Medicare claim. It (the bill) gets paid upfront — no copay, deductible or denial. The doctor becomes content and more willing to participate in the network, and law firms have flexibility and fluidness to allow the patient to choose the best medical care.”
With only 5% of claims going to trial, CaseConnectMD is “willing to take that risk and remove the headaches from the doctor. The doctor is paid upfront.” The company anticipates punctual payments for services provided will increase the number of medical practitioners willing to work with injury claims patients.
“In the many years I have been involved in start-ups, there are few that truly add value to all constituents,” he said. “In our case, (that’s) the patient, the medical providers, health systems and the law firms. That is why I am passionate about what we are doing at CaseConnectMD.”
CaseConnectMD is ready to launch. The company’s software is live, and they already have over 200 medical providers in their network. Kebbekus explains the company is currently reviewing a handful of carefully selected law firms to work with for the launch.
While the company plan is a national model, CaseConnectMD’s three partners are all from Wisconsin, making the state a natural launching ground for the business. The company anticipates it will begin serving clients in the second quarter of 2022.
At this time, the company is self-funded, but serial entrepreneur Kebbekus says the new company is exploring funding options to meet the needs of the growing company. To follow the rollout of CaseConnectMD, connect with them here.