5 B2B Revenue Models Every Healthcare Startup Should Consider

In today’s competitive healthcare landscape, innovation alone isn’t enough to thrive. Having the right revenue strategy is essential for success. As more startups develop B2B solutions to streamline healthcare operations and deliver improved patient care, many founders are asking the same question: How do we get paid, reliably, repeatedly, and at scale?

Physician-turned-founder and investor Navin Goyal, MD, offers a perspective from both sides of the healthcare equation. Following a 13-year career as an anesthesiologist and medical director, Navin co-founded OFFOR Health, a mobile anesthesia company that delivers care to underserved children across the country, and LOUD Capital, a relationship-driven venture firm with more than 80 portfolio companies and four exits to date. 

In an exclusive interview with Cure, Goyal shared the most viable revenue models for B2B healthcare startups, with insights on what works, what doesn’t, and the biggest pitfall startups are falling prey to today.  

5 B2B Models Healthcare Entrepreneurs Need to Know 

Choosing the right business model is key to establishing a strong foundation for your startup’s growth. Here are five common B2B models that healthcare founders can consider, along with how each one supports different go-to-market strategies.

1. Subscription 

Subscription models typically have a low barrier to entry, and by building trust and delivering early value, they can lead to long-term customer loyalty. By providing early value and building trust, startups can drive retention and turn users into long-term customers.

Goyal observed an upward trend in more B2B healthcare startups going this route. He shared, “I don’t think that’s necessarily a change from what we’ve seen in other industries, but it’s something from a healthcare perspective that companies are adopting.” 

2. Per-patient, per-month (PPPM)

Health insurance companies, in particular, are using a per-patient, per-month (PPPM) model. “That’s a similar aspect, but it’s a little more unique because we’re talking about not necessarily a specific user but a specific person that has access, and that can be a different way to think about it,” Goyal explained. 

Like subscription (SaaS) pricing, PPPM models scale with usage. They also offer predictable revenue, making them a wise choice for startups that need to demonstrate steady financial projections.

3. Transaction-based

Healthcare heavyweights like Zocdoc and Wheel employ a transaction-based revenue model. Marketplaces or care coordination platforms that connect providers with patients or insurers with services are among the most common startups to use this revenue model, as it’s relatively easy to launch and doesn’t always require upfront commitments from users. However, because revenue depends on usage, revenue can be unpredictable, which makes forecasting and long-term planning more challenging.

Customer turnover takes on a different form with transaction-based revenue models. A user might stop using the product without officially churning, making it harder to track engagement or proactively troubleshoot. 

4. Data-licensing

A data-licensing revenue model is one in which the startup aggregates large-scale healthcare data and then licenses these insights to other organizations, such as pharmaceutical companies, research institutions, or insurance companies. 

Real-world data companies, such as Flatiron Health and Tempus, along with digital health measurement and engagement platforms like Evidation Health, operate under this model. Data licensing often combines usage-based pricing with analytics tools, providing customers with more value and startups with more upsell potential.

5. Licensing and intellectual property

Licensing and intellectual property (IP) is another viable revenue model for healthcare B2B startups. The typical use case is when a healthcare startup develops proprietary technology, such as machine learning algorithms or medical devices, and later licenses the IP to other businesses that benefit from the technology’s capabilities. 

This model enables healthcare startups to scale quickly without building a large customer base, but it also means relinquishing some control over how the technology is applied across partner sites. 

Case Study on Choosing A Revenue Model

When choosing a revenue model for OFFOR Health, Goyal and his team focused on aligning with how insurance companies prefer to operate. He explained, “For OFFOR Health, we did a revenue model that was driven by the insurance companies, and so it was actually, and it still continues to be, per patient case.”

OFFOR Health provides anesthesia services for patients in dental practices. They handle everything, from seeing the patient to putting the child to sleep safely, getting them through their procedure, recovering them, and sending them off. A single value-based billing code covers all of these services, which, as Goyal put it, “is consistent with what insurance companies want to do.” 

The bundling of services into one code supports a value-based care model, simplifies billing for payers, and reduces administrative overhead for the provider. It also aligns with existing reimbursement structures, which makes integration with insurers more seamless.

Goyal described OFFOR’s approach as something it didn’t create, but rather as something that was mutually molded. He explained, “It was a new category–from a medical team going into a dental office, so we were kind of combining two industries.” 

By aligning its model with payer incentives and simplifying the customer experience, OFFOR was able to build trust with insurers while entering a niche market with a novel service. The single-value-based code proved not only efficient but also strategically positioned the company to scale within existing insurance systems.

Where Many B2B Healthcare Startups Go Wrong

As both an investor and a clinician, Goyal has identified a common pitfall that often trips up many B2B healthcare startups: they build for healthcare professionals without meaningfully involving them.

As he explained, companies are building solutions for healthcare professionals, but often fail to involve them in the feedback or decision-making process. “Those people are not giving the feedback or are not given the voice to help shape what the product or service is,” he explained. 

For entrepreneurs, this is a critical misstep. Goyal emphasized the importance of involving the right voices early in the product development process. 

He shared, “This is happening a lot in healthcare because there’s not only people who need to use the product or service, but there’s a lot of unique points of red tape or bureaucracy that it might not pass through.”

The takeaway for founders: early input from clinical end users isn’t optional—it’s essential to building a viable solution that earns trust, complies with regulations, and integrates with real-world workflows.