Healthcare services · Prior authorization

ClaimGlide

A solo founder's bet that AI can run the whole prior authorization cycle for private medical practices: writing the request, chasing the payer, and filing the appeal. It is a Y Combinator Winter 2026 company with one full time employee and, as of this writing, no named clinic customers.

The billers were on the verge of tears

Before she wrote a line of ClaimGlide's code, Nami Lindquist spent time working as an administrative assistant inside a clinic. In a January 2026 post announcing her Y Combinator backing, she described what she saw there in blunt terms: the billers fighting prior authorization requests were, in her words, “often on the verge of tears, fighting for patients in a system designed to exhaust them.” She added a line that reads like the company's thesis statement: “That's a feature, not a bug.”

ClaimGlide's pitch is that the paperwork fight between a doctor's office and an insurer, the back and forth of prior authorization, can be handled by software instead of a stressed-out staff member on hold with a payer. The company's own description, repeated on its Y Combinator listing and its website, is that it automates “the entire end-to-end prior-authorization process for private practices for cheaper, and more accurately than they're doing today.”

The problem

Prior authorization is the step where a payer has to approve a treatment, test or medication before it will pay for it. It exists to control cost and unnecessary care. In practice, doctors and industry groups have described it for years as one of the more resented pieces of US health care administration: manual paperwork, hold times with insurers, and denials that trigger a separate appeals process. ClaimGlide's website lists four claimed capabilities aimed at that cycle: drafting prior-auth requests that include “phrases and verbiage that payers look for to approve,” auto-pulling provider, patient and diagnosis codes from the practice's EMR, tracking authorizations and flagging delays, and auto-generating and submitting appeal letters, including handling appeal phone calls to payers.

The company says it stores prior-auth confirmation numbers and documentation so a practice does not lose the paper trail if a later claim is denied. It describes the product as HIPAA-compliant and built to integrate with a practice's existing EMR.

Founder

Lindquist studied in the University of Pennsylvania's Jerome Fisher M&T Program, a joint degree combining a Wharton economics degree with computer science, and holds an accelerated master's in computer science from Penn, according to her RocketReach profile, which draws on professional history she has made public. Before ClaimGlide, her listed roles include a software engineering stint on SpaceX's software, control and navigation team, a hospital researcher position at Penn Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System, an investment banking summer analyst role, and, in 2025, work as an administrative assistant and AI transformation lead at a clinic operator listed as Living Well Clinics. She also founded and led Penn Hyperloop as a student, per the same profile.

In her own account, posted the day ClaimGlide's Y Combinator backing became public, she framed the founding story around personal history with the health system: “I was hit by a car as a pedestrian in middle school, and my younger brother has had 6 surgeries before the age of 7.” She wrote that she had watched friends and family “go without their needed medications, sit in pain, and have conditions worsen, all because of delays in the prior-auth process or insurance denying care they actually need,” and that she “walked away from SpaceX, investment banking, and private equity offers to work inside clinics and feel the pain firsthand.”

A write-up on The YC Tier List, an independent blog that reviews each Y Combinator batch, summarized the founder-market fit this way: “ClaimGlide has a founder with genuine domain conviction: Nami Lindquist, Penn M&T, SpaceX SWE, quit SpaceX to go work inside a clinic as an admin for 3 months before building.” The same write-up called that “deliberate customer immersion” a real signal, while flagging the flip side: a solo founder with no prior healthcare go-to-market experience and no co-founder, competing against better-capitalized rivals.

Timeline

ClaimGlide was founded in 2025. It was accepted into Y Combinator's Winter 2026 batch under partner Jared Friedman. Lindquist posted a Loom demo of the product and asked her network for introductions to decision-makers at private practices, naming behavioral health, orthopedics, sports medicine and pain management as target specialties. As of this research, the company has not announced a priced funding round, has not named a clinic customer, and has not been the subject of coverage in mainstream trade press.

What is proven, and what is still claimed

Read plainly: ClaimGlide is a very early, one-person Y Combinator company. What is confirmed is that Y Combinator accepted it into a batch and, per a third-party data provider, put in a standard accelerator check. What is not yet confirmed anywhere reviewed here is a paying customer, a specific dollar recovery or approval-rate result, or a funding round beyond that accelerator investment.

What to watch

• Whether ClaimGlide names any clinic or health system as a live customer.
• A first SEC Form D, which would confirm outside capital beyond the Y Combinator check and give a dollar figure for it.
• Whether Lindquist adds a co-founder or an early healthcare go-to-market hire, a gap an independent reviewer flagged directly.
• Coverage from health IT or revenue-cycle trade press, which has not yet covered the company.

In their words

Related companies

• Arctic Health: Also in Healthcare Services. A New York startup pairing credentialing specialists with AI browser agents to get clinicians in-network faster
• Loula: Also in Healthcare Services. A New York City startup that handles billing, credentialing and revenue cycle work so independent birth and postpartum doulas can accept Medi-Cal and commercial
• DirectShifts: Also in Healthcare Services. A New York software platform that tries to replace the traditional locum tenens and travel nursing agency with an app
• Medmonk: Also in Healthcare Services. It began as a pharmacist’s spreadsheet for finding money for patients who could not pay for their drugs

Sources

1. Public recordClaimGlide company page, Winter 2026 batch, founded 2025, team size 1, partner Jared FriedmanY Combinator · accessed via Wayback Machine, May 21, 2026 snapshot
2. Not foundEDGAR company search for ClaimGlide, no matching companies; EDGAR full text search for ClaimGlide in Form D filings, zero resultsSEC EDGAR · checked Sep 25, 2026
3. Data providerClaimGlide company profile: founded 2025, San Francisco, CA, one Accelerator or Incubator deal of $500K from Y CombinatorPitchBook · snapshot Aug 3, 2026
4. IndependentNami Lindquist professional history and contact profileRocketReach · accessed 2026
5. IndependentClaimGlide Winter 2026 batch review, founder background and competitive assessmentThe YC Tier List · 2026
6. IndependentClaimGlide company profile listing competitors Cohere Health, Infinitus, Rhyme, Banjo Health, Tennr, Waystar, Change Healthcare and CoverMyMedsZeitgeist · snapshot May 13, 2026
7. IndependentClaimGlide funding and company summaryExtruct AI · snapshot Sep 18, 2026
8. IndependentClaimGlide brand and pricing extraction, no public pricing tiers detectedwebclaw · snapshot Aug 28, 2026
9. CompanyClaimGlide homepage: product features and descriptionclaimglide.com · snapshot Jan 1, 2025
10. CompanyClaimGlide Demo post: founding story, product description, quotesNami Lindquist on LinkedIn · January 2026