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Erez Druk, co-founder and CEO of Freed.Courtesy: Freed
For Erez Druk, who spent almost four years working at Facebook, building health-care startup Freed has been a labor of love, quite literally.
Druk’s wife, Dr. Gabi Meckler, works at a community clinic in northern California, where she cares for children and adults, and delivers babies at a local hospital. When not with patients, Meckler is inundated with paperwork, constantly updating medical records and related documents.
“I got sucked into the world of clinicians,” Druk said in an interview. “One day, it was like, ‘Hey Gabi, what should we just build for you?’ And she said, ‘Do my notes for me.'”
Druk worked as a software engineer at Facebook from 2013 until launching his prior startup, UrbanLeap, in 2017. He shuttered UrbanLeap, which focused on software for public procurement, in 2022, and started Freed the following year, along with Andrey Bannikov, who had spent the prior decade at Facebook.
Freed offers an AI scribe that automates the clinical notetaking process in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The company sells the technology directly to individual clinicians, oftentimes at small or independent practices, for $99 a month, and is beginning to partner with entire practices, Druk said.
On Wednesday, Freed announced a $30 million funding round led by Sequoia Capital, a hefty haul for a company raising its first institutional capital. The company also announced new features like custom note formatting, pre-charting, and specialty specific templates. Freed said it plans to build additional capabilities, like automating coding and other billing cycle functions.
Clinicians spend nearly nine hours a week on documentation, according to an October study from Google Cloud. A study last year from Athenahealth concluded that administrative tasks are a significant reason for burnout, as 64% of doctors feel overwhelmed by clerical requirements.
Physicians are responsible for completing mountains of paperwork, including the tedious and time-consuming process of clinical notes, which contain detailed records of patient visits.
Druk wants to automate as much of that process as possible so doctors can spend more time with patients and, perhaps, even with their family.
As of late February, 17,000 clinicians around the world are using Freed in about 2 million patient visits each month, he said.
“It just started spreading,” Druk said. “It’s really been beyond my wildest expectations.”
Crowded field
Druk isn’t the only one who sees the opportunity.
The AI scribing market has exploded in recent years as health systems have been searching for tools that can help address administrative burnout. Freed is going up against tech giants like Microsoft, as well as startups like Abridge and Suki that have developed similar tools.
Josephine Chen, a partner at Sequoia, said the crowded market reflects the seriousness of the problem. She said Freed’s scribing tool has gained traction by focusing on smaller, independent offices.
“Freed’s approach is unique because most of the companies we see are serving a different market segment,” Chen said.
Natalie Desseyn said Freed is the reason she’s still working as a nurse practitioner in psychiatry.
Desseyn sees about 250 patients through a practice called Cloud Break Therapy in Virginia. She’s been using Freed for about two years and pays for it herself. Without it, she said she wouldn’t be able to see patients on such a large scale, if at all.
“I’m not over here writing, so people feel really heard,” Desseyn said. “I can’t tell you all the ways, it’s literally changed my life.”
Desseyn has tried a few other AI scribing tools, but she said she always comes back to Freed. She said its model is better at keeping things precise, sticking to the facts and avoiding extraneous comments in the notes.
Meckler, Druk’s wife, said documentation was the thing she disliked the most while practicing medicine. She said Freed felt like “magic” the first time she used it.
Previously, Meckler said she would spend about half of her day writing notes. Individual tasks that used to take her around 15 minutes to complete now take closer to two, she said.
“I expect great things from Erez, but I was still shocked,” Meckler said.
Druk said he and his 50-person team are focused on building the business and its product portfolio this year. He said he remains committed to creating a platform that clinicians, and his wife, enjoy using.
“It’s truly the most fulfilling and the most important work I’ve ever done, and probably will ever do,” he said.
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