NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New help is on the way for the more than 100 million Americans who suffer from a neurological disorder. Neura Health, which was built to close the massive access and quality gap in neurological care, today announced it has closed a $2.2 million seed funding round.
Like many telehealth companies, Neura saw an industry demand accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Neurology telehealth skyrocketed during the pandemic. Both patients and doctors realized its benefits in convenience and access, particularly important for those with movement disorders and conditions with light sensitivity, such as migraines.
“With 24/7 access to a personalized care team through Neura Health, patients can avoid long wait lists and find relief with a trusted partner,” said Elizabeth Burstein, CEO and Co-founder of Neura Health. “This funding will help propel our mission of closing the access and quality gap for millions living with neurological disorders.”
The seed fund investors include Pear VC (Doordash, Guardant Health), Norwest Venture Partners (Calm, Talkspace), Global Founders Capital, Index Ventures (Figma, Robinhood), digital health expert Nikhil Krishnan, and Next Play Ventures, the fund of former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.
Neura Health’s Product
Neura’s app is custom-built for specific neurological conditions, providing patients with all they need to manage their condition in one place.
Neura’s first condition focus is headache and migraine, with future plans to focus on other conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s. The app offers an affordable membership fee of $28/month (just $1 for the first week). The app includes a powerful headache tracker, insights on personal triggers, and unlimited access to a dedicated care team, with a near-instant ability to hold video visits with board-certified neurologists specializing in headache medicine. Patients also have the option to get prescription medications delivered to their doorstep. Depending on patients’ insurance plans, video visit fees may only cost a small copay, while patients who pay cash are charged $150 for an initial visit, $75 for follow up visits.
Symptom tracking helps patients uncover relevant triggers and insights on which treatment methods are the most effective. Neura’s early patient research highlighted that it often would take patients months, if not years, to uncover which medications or treatments actually work for them. Diligent recording of symptoms helps shorten this discovery cycle and allows Neura to leverage predictive analytics for early warning signals and personalized treatment recommendations.
Patients’ dedicated care teams include not only headache neurologists, but also dedicated care coaches and concierges. Coaches meet with patients weekly to provide emotional support and hold them accountable to their treatment plans, which may include lifestyle modifications in diet, stress, exercise, or other areas, or medication changes. Meanwhile, concierges help patients with administrative tasks such as prior authorizations, scheduling of referrals, and insurance-related inquiries.
The reaction from patients has been outstanding. "It's amazing to feel like I'm more than a collection of symptoms and to have someone personally check in on how I'm doing each week," says Neura patient Carolyn Rivkees, a writer, consultant and patient advocate, who runs the popular Instagram community @chronically_cheerful. "Neura makes me feel more empowered and hopeful about managing my migraines."
For providers, Neura is a great way to maximize efficiency and patient case load. The app alleviates the doctor from having to ask redundant questions around patient history (severity of symptoms, frequency, attempted medications) and instead collects this data asynchronously, presenting a more accurate and detailed picture of the patient’s experience and freeing up the doctor to focus on a patient’s personalized treatment plan.
Outcomes Data
Neura’s longer term vision is to find cures by learning from the experience of every neurology patient. In the current healthcare system, data is largely siloed. Treatment data lives in electronic health records owned by hospitals and clinics, while symptoms data is fragmented across these records, paper diaries, and disjointed apps that don’t allow doctors to easily access data.
By centralizing this data in a full-stack virtual clinic, Neura is aggregating a massive anonymized data set on neurological conditions and outcomes. This allows researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and other industry stakeholders to better understand which medications and lifestyle modifications are most effective with minimal side effects, and ultimately accelerate the search for cures.
Closing the Access Gap
Neura co-founders Elizabeth Burstein and Sameer Madan bonded over frustrating personal experiences with chronic neurological conditions. Burstein, who formerly led product development teams at Zocdoc and LinkedIn, has suffered from an intractable nerve entrapment. Even in New York City, Burstein has had to wait over six months to see the right type of neurologist for her condition.
Neura is building technology products to help close access and quality gaps. Neura’s headache and migraine app is available nationwide on Android and iPhone platforms. Experience chronic headaches or migraines, or know someone who does? Click here to learn more and use promo NEURARELIEF22 by 4/1/22 for 50% off your first month’s membership fee.
About Neura
Neura Health is a virtual neurology clinic with a mission to improve the access and quality of neurological care: increase convenience, improve outcomes, and lower costs. Neura Health's platform connects patients to neurologists, with in-built neurology-specific symptom monitoring and condition-specific diagnostic tests. These include cognitive exams, psychomotor tests, and standard assessments. Neura Health has HIPAA-compliant text messaging and video visits, with a care concierge service to help patients with their various needs. The company’s first app focus is on chronic headache and migraine.
