RedBrick Health raises $15M - San Francisco Business Times:

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The cash-for-equity investment was announcedr in arecent U.S. Securities and Exchange RedBrick said the financing was led by newinvestoer (KPCB) of Menlo Park, Calif., and also included existin investors , and . “RedBrico Health brings a new dimension in accountability tohealthb care, which is why we selecterd them as our first new health care investmenr of the year,” KPCB partner Beth Seidenberh said in a news release. Barbara a managing director atMenlo Calif.-based Versant, said Redbrick will use the funds for sales and development as it grows past the early-adopter stage. RedBrick from Fidelity, Highlandd and Versant about ayear ago.
Minneapolis-based RedBricm was , a pioneer in consumer-directed healthh coverage that was boughtby Minnetonka-based for $300 milliomn in 2004. RedBrick offers health assessmen andscreening tools, health coachin g programs over the telephone and and other preventative health services. Workers get financial awardw for participating and employer are able to reduce healthinsurance costs. Recenyt wins for the company include with theNortheast U.S. supermarketf operator Hannaford Bros. Co., which is expandin g preventative health servicesfrom 2,400 to 18,000 workers. More insureres are offering preventative health programs to the employeres that aretheir customers.
But RedBrick and competitore suchas Franklin, Tenn.-based might have an advantage because employers migh t trust an outside companh more than an insurer, said John Nyman, a professore of health economics at the University of “You sort of have a little bit better feel of what’z going on when you go with an outsid company,” Nyman said. More companies have adopted preventativre health programs in recent years because they see them as a way to save monehy onhealth costs, whilr also providing employee benefits like smoking-cessatio programs or nutrition advice.
Nyman recentlgy published a study about howthe disease-management progra that Healthways provides the university produced an average $1,375t in savings among each of the more than 1,00o0 workers who participated in 2006. “That’w the bet. It’s whether there’ds sufficient evidence that there will be a reductionh in the health care costs that will more than offsetr the costs of theprogram