PatientBank

Market position

One of several startups in the patient medical-record access segment; MedCity News named ZweenaHealth and Mana Health, the latter providing record access via hospital and health system web portals, as comparable companies. PatientBank's system was reported to have been used to interact with nearly every hospital in the United States before shutdown [1][3].

The company positioned standardization as its core advantage: a single ordering flow that works the same for any doctor or hospital in the United States, backed by multiple flexible retrieval channels that allowed it to work with institutions on their own terms and to expand hospital coverage [2][3]. Reported delivery in roughly ten days versus the 30-day statutory maximum was also cited as a differentiator [6].

Technology

A web-based (and, per Grokipedia, mobile) application that generated HIPAA-compliant authorization forms, submitted requests through multiple channels including mail, electronic transfer and fax, digitized and standardized returned records, and stored them for download or secure sharing. Grokipedia describes an underlying database of U.S. healthcare contacts used to automate submission and status tracking [2][5][6].

Go-to-market

Direct-to-consumer online ordering of records, with visibility gained through the Y Combinator Summer 2016 accelerator and its Demo Day launch coverage. The initial product targeted the generation of authorizations and documentation used by both hospital staff and patients before the team narrowed its focus to consumers [2][3][5].

Primarily consumers, whom the team prioritized after entering Y Combinator on the reasoning that individuals often serve as the vehicle for moving records between providers. An earlier version of the product was used by hospital staff as well as patients. Grokipedia additionally lists healthcare providers, businesses requesting records for employees or clients, and researchers as user categories [2][6].

Geography

Operated across the United States, obtaining records from over 2,500 distinct hospitals as of December 2016 and, by 2018, from nearly every hospital in the country. Sources published in 2016 and Grokipedia place headquarters in San Francisco, California; the Y Combinator company directory lists the location as New York City, NY [1][2][3][4][6].

History

Work on the idea began in 2014 according to the founders' farewell post, and the startup was founded in 2015 by Paul Fletcher-Hill, Feridun Mert Celebi, Kevin Grassi, MD and Graham Kaemmer, who met at Yale University. The team was accepted into Y Combinator's Summer 2016 batch and refocused the product on consumers. In December 2016 it raised $2.2 million in seed funding. On January 4, 2018 the team announced the product would stop accepting new record requests and close entirely on January 12, 2018, citing the inability to find a sustainable business model; users were directed to download their records and to alternatives such as direct provider requests, hospital patient portals, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box or Microsoft HealthVault [0][1][2][5][6].

Risks & controversies

The company's stated reason for shutting down was the failure to identify a sustainable business model despite significant usage. Operationally, it depended on heterogeneous and often manual hospital release-of-information processes, including fax and mail, and on provider compliance with HIPAA's 30-day access requirement, which sources describe as frequently unmet. Sources also disagree on basic facts such as headquarters location (San Francisco versus New York City) and per-record pricing ($9.99 versus $30) [1][2][3][4][5].