A Healthtech Unicorn Leaves a Trail of Clinic Complaints, Concerns Over Billing Practices — The Information

Early last year, salespeople from a health tech startup, Athelas, gave Rich Schlauch a pitch he couldn’t resist. The salespeople told Schlauch, who runs a behavioral health clinic in South Carolina, that he could increase his practice’s revenue by at least 15% and submit insurance claims faster using Athelas’ new billing software, which employs artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies, Schlauch said. His clinic was doing well at the time—he didn’t have enough staff to handle the surge in demand for mental health services it had seen since the pandemic—but he found the Athelas pitch compelling. He moved the billing operations for his clinic, Palmetto Counseling and Consulting Services, onto Athelas’ system in early spring, and went live with the new setup in May. Instead of seeing a jump in revenue, though, Schlauch said his clinic soon faced financial ruin. In the weeks after Palmetto began using Athelas’ software, his practice stopped receiving payments from insurer

Early last year, salespeople from a health tech startup, Athelas, gave Rich Schlauch a pitch he couldn’t resist. The salespeople told Schlauch, who runs a behavioral health clinic in South Carolina, that he could increase his practice’s revenue by at least 15% and submit insurance claims faster using Athelas’ new billing software, which employs artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies, Schlauch said. His clinic was doing well at the time—he didn’t have enough staff to handle the surge in demand for mental health services it had seen since the pandemic—but he found the Athela