Ember

What do they actually do

Ember builds an AI revenue cycle tool for outpatient clinics. It captures visit notes (via web and iOS), recommends ICD-10/CPT codes, scrubs claims against payer rules, and drafts letters/forms like prior authorizations and denial appeals so staff can review and submit. The company markets fast setup (“onboard in 3 days”) and reports denial reduction (“cut denials by 55%”) based on early users (company claims) (Ember site and product pages; Launch YC) (Ember, Launch YC).

Clinics use Ember through a hosted web app and an iOS app for in‑clinic scribing/transcription. It integrates with common EHRs and marketplaces (e.g., athenahealth, ModMed) and offers tools like an ICD‑10 helper and ROI calculator to analyze past claims and denial patterns (Ember, App Store).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Small-to-mid physician practices (family medicine, specialists): Physicians and staff spend hours turning notes into billable claims and still miss payer-specific coding/eligibility rules, causing denials, rework, and delayed payments.
• Surgeons and ambulatory surgery centers: Procedures require precise coding and pre-authorizations; missing documentation or coding errors lead to large write-offs and frequent, time-consuming appeals.
• Urgent care clinics: High visit volume creates transcription bottlenecks; first-pass documentation and coding must be accurate to avoid rejected claims and downstream rework.
• Billing managers / medical billers at small practices: They manually scrub claims, track changing payer rules, and draft appeals—repetitive, error-prone work that consumes most of the day.
• Practice owners / clinic administrators focused on cash flow: Denials and slow collections make revenue unpredictable; they want faster payments and audit-ready documentation without long or complex implementations.

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run warm, short pilots with clinics from founders’ and YC networks. Offer to scrub a month of A/R and produce a quantified uplift via the ROI tool, with 3‑day onboarding and a single integration contact (Launch YC; Ember site) (Launch YC, Ember).
• First 50: Leverage EHR marketplaces (athenahealth, ModMed) for inbound leads and pair with targeted outbound to billing managers and urgent-care leaders offering a two‑week pilot that documents denial reduction and generates templated appeals via AI agents; add a small referral credit (Ember, AI agents).
• First 100: Scale via channel partners (regional billing services, ASC vendors) and deeper EHR integrations while driving inbound through the ICD‑10 helper and ROI content; convert with standardized 3‑day onboarding and a CSM-led rollout playbook (Ember).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Market reports vary widely, but multiple firms size the U.S. revenue cycle management market in the tens of billions today: one U.S.-focused estimate places it at ~$58.5B in 2024 with double‑digit growth, while another estimates ~$172B in 2024 (definitions differ) (Precedence Research, Grand View Research). Medical‑billing outsourcing—a direct alternative to software automation—adds a U.S. market of roughly $6.3B in 2024 (Grand View Research).

Bottom-up calculation:

Addressable outpatient sites in the U.S. are on the order of ~420k: ~395k active physician group practices (Jan 2025), ~14.4k urgent care centers (2023), and 6.3k Medicare‑certified ASCs (with total ASCs including non‑Medicare estimated near ~12k), which together align with the company’s focus on outpatient claims and A/R workflows (Definitive Healthcare, Trilliant via GVR urgent care, Becker’s ASC, ASC Data).

Assumptions:

• Counts treat each practice/center as a potential customer; multi-site groups may consolidate purchasing.
• Focus is on outpatient settings where Ember’s scribing, coding, scrubbing, and appeals workflows apply.
• Dollar TAM depends on whether you include software, services, and/or outsourcing; figures above mix these definitions.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Waystar: Enterprise/ambulatory RCM platform for claim scrubbing, eligibility, denial prevention and appeals. Often chosen by practices/ASCs seeking an end‑to‑end RCM vendor rather than a point AI tool (Waystar overview).
• Optum / Change Healthcare: Large claims-processing and RCM infrastructure across providers. Overlaps on automated edits, denial analytics, and rules engines that catch payer issues before submission.
• Suki: AI clinical assistant focused on ambient documentation and generating EHR‑ready notes; marketed to reduce downstream billing friction and offers assisted RCM features.
• CoverMyMeds (McKesson): Dominant e‑prior authorization network for prescriptions. Overlaps with Ember’s agents when clinics need automated prior‑auth workflows and form generation.
• DeepScribe: AI scribe that transcribes visits and produces EHR‑ready notes, competing on the documentation surface even if not a full claims/denials platform.