Outbound AI

Outbound AI is a Seattle-based healthcare technology company that develops conversational AI agents to carry out phone-based administrative work across the revenue cycle. Its Conversation AI Cloud combines enterprise conversational AI services, an integrated multimodal communications stack spanning voice, text and chat, a portfolio of AI agents trained for specific healthcare job functions, and human-agent teaming software that gives staff and supervisors real-time visibility and control over agent activity.

The company packages the platform into three offerings. Claims Work Console is a SaaS product for physician practices and medical billing companies that automates claims processing tasks with major commercial and Medicare Advantage health plans and includes a rapid-training service to cover most of a provider's payer mix. For healthcare enterprises, Outbound AI designs and operationalizes custom conversational AI solutions that integrate with systems of record and support conversational analytics. For healthcare solution partners serving providers and payers, it licenses its platform and expertise to build or extend applications with conversational AI capabilities. The company also markets a PayerVA Console, referenced by partner Acclara in connection with Tegria's revenue cycle operations work.

Founding story

The company was spun out of Madrona Venture Labs in 2021 and raised $7 million shortly after its founding in March 2021. Co-founder and CEO Stead Burwell leads a founding team that includes Justin Ith, a former product lead at Madrona Venture Labs; Kshitij Moghe, previously of Saykara; and CTO Jonathan Wiggs, who worked on speech models for Apple's Siri while at Nuance and later served as vice president of engineering and architecture at Avalara. Burwell has framed the company's urgency around rising patient volumes driven by an aging US population, an expanding middle class and nursing shortages.

Business model

Outbound AI sells software to healthcare providers and their service partners rather than performing outsourced labor, positioning its AI agents as a virtual workforce that augments existing billing and administrative staff. It sells directly to physician practices and medical billing companies via its Claims Work Console SaaS product, engages healthcare enterprises on custom-built conversational AI deployments, and licenses its platform to healthcare solution partners who embed it in their own applications.

The company generates revenue through a consumption-based pricing model, charging customers based on monthly usage of its products measured in minutes.

Traction

Outbound AI declined to disclose its total customer count but reported adding 15 new customers in the four months preceding June 2023, when headcount stood at roughly 40, up from 27 the prior September. Customer references include Orthos, whose president cited use of the Claims Work Console in medical billing work, and Acclara, whose CEO commented on the PayerVA Console in the context of Tegria's revenue cycle operations. The company was selected for Microsoft's Pegasus Program on the basis of demonstrated product-market fit and received the Healthcare AI Impact Award in 2024.

Latest developments

In September 2024 the company announced it had won the Healthcare AI Impact Award 2024 for work eliminating human-intensive administrative tasks in revenue cycle management. Earlier that year, in February 2024, it joined the Microsoft for Startups Pegasus Program to partner with Microsoft on enterprise healthcare digital transformation while expanding its Kansas City operations.