Nearly every developed country is witnessing a significant and rapid increase in the aging population. Along with this demographic shift, the expenses associated with caring for the elderly are rising at an approximate rate of five percent annually. This places a considerable burden on family caregivers, who find themselves constantly assisting with various tasks such as doctor’s appointments, therapy sessions, daily reminders, and more on a weekly basis.

Not surprisingly, this cost can easily add up. For example, about $600 billion was spent on caregiving in the United States in 2021 alone. This staggering figure underscores the immense financial burden on families who act as caregivers. It is against this backdrop that one caregiving startup is aiming to help more than 53 million Americans in their caregiving roles.

Enter Helpful, a new app that aims to help caregivers navigate their benefits information, medical records, and post-hospital discharge. The app aims to also help manage the administrative aspects of a family member’s care plan and ease the burden and provide much-needed assistance to caregivers. “Helpful simplifies family caregiving by combining your loved one’s insurance benefits and medical records into one user-friendly platform while enhancing your caregiving skills,” Heplful says on its website.

Today, Helpful makes its official debut, backed by $7.5 million in seed financing through Redesign Health to streamline the caregiving process by consolidating insurance benefits, medical records, and caregiving resources all in one place. With this launch, Helpful joins the ranks of other startups like Wellthy, ianacare, Aidaly, and SupportPay.

However, what makes Helpful stand out from other caregiving apps is its strong emphasis on easing the administrative burdens that come with caregiving. The app separates itself from the crowd seamlessly integrating a loved one’s medical records, including existing insurance benefits, medications, after-visit summaries, and care plans by “leveraging the most recent regulatory requirements for payors and providers,” Helpful founder and CEO Wes Donohoe said.

On top of that, Helpful also offers personalized and localized caregiver benefits, as well as training on medical conditions. This comprehensive approach makes it a valuable tool for caregivers, providing them with essential resources and support to navigate their caregiving responsibilities more effectively.

The idea to launch Helpful came from Donohoe’s personal experiences witnessing the toll caregiving took on his loved ones. Before founding Helpful, he served as the chief product officer at Everside Health, a primary care practice, and previously held the position of vice president of product at One Medical.

According to Donohoe, Helpful’s caregiving app was launched in collaboration with a payor partner, and it already boasts an impressive waitlist of approximately 4,000 individuals.

What’s even more remarkable is that this waitlist is rapidly growing by about 2,000 people each week, indicating the strong demand for the app’s caregiving services. It’s clear that Helpful has struck a chord with those in need, making a meaningful difference in the lives of caregivers and their families.

“We are the only ones that showcase the loved one’s insurance benefits,” Donohoe said. “We had to programmatically scrape insurance websites to pull this info because no API exists to access this information. We’re fortunate to be able to raise a considerable amount of capital, especially in this market, and the plan is going to be building products and integrating.”