By Mary Vanac

Healthcare technology and services company CoverMyMeds LLC received a $250,000 investment commitment from JumpStart Ventures to develop its application for automated submission of requests to cover patient prescriptions that have been rejected by insurers.

The Twinsburg, Ohio-based company has developed Web- and phone-based tools that speed up and automate the submission of prior authorization requests to health insurance plans. Insurers require that these requests and other coverage determination forms to be submitted after they reject a patient’s prescription.

Before CoverMyMeds, doctors’ offices and pharmacies submitted their requests manually, which could be an expensive or frustrating process. The hassle factor caused some doctors and pharmacies to forgo submitting the requests, so some patients went without needed medications.

Tools developed by CoverMyMeds cut the request submissions process by at least 70 percent, to five minutes. The company will use the infusion from the investment arm of venture developer JumpStart Inc. to refine its product and begin to integrate it with doctor, pharmacy and insurer work flows.

CoverMyMeds co-founders Sam Rajan and Alan Scantland previously served on the senior management team at MemberHealth, a pharmacy benefits management company in Solon, Ohio. The two led a management team that grew the company from $55 million in revenues to $1.3 billion by 2007 when it was acquired by Universal American Financial Corp. for $630 million.

With the CoverMyMeds investment, JumpStart ended its fiscal year having made 13 investments — the most of any year since its 2004 inception. JumpStart Ventures invests in early-stage Northeast Ohio companies that have the potential to generate between $30 million to $50 million in revenues in five to seven years.