Digital health · Pelvic floor rehabilitation
Comet Health
A Y Combinator company that sold $100 video visits with licensed pelvic floor physical therapists. The clinical service is gone. The same brand now sells a subscription exercise app that states plainly it does not treat anyone.
A $100 video call
The booking page was plain. Forty five minutes with a physical therapist for an initial evaluation, $100, eligible for a health savings or flexible spending account. Thirty minute follow ups, $75. A video curriculum for $10 a month.
Insurance was not part of it. “We do not take insurance but we are happy to put together a superbill for you upon request,” the site said, leaving the reimbursement fight to the patient.
One clinician was named: Janelle Gibson, PT DPT, a doctorate from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, described as a trained pelvic floor specialist treating “all genders, trans-inclusive.” The company was registered in Alexandria, and Virginia lets patients see a physical therapist for up to 30 days without a referral. That was the business: a specialist, a webcam, and a price a person could pay without calling a payer.
Why try this remotely
Pelvic floor physical therapy is among the better evidenced things in conservative women’s health. The 2018 Cochrane review by Dumoulin, Cacciari and Hay-Smith pooled 31 trials and 1,817 women across 14 countries. Women with stress urinary incontinence assigned to pelvic floor muscle training were about eight times more likely to report cure, 56 percent against 6 percent, a finding the reviewers rated high quality. Adverse events were rare and minor.
That evidence belongs to the therapy, not to any company selling it. Comet was betting on distribution instead, on the argument that specialists are scarce and scarcity is geographic.
The ground under that bet kept moving. Physical therapists have only ever been temporarily eligible to bill Medicare for telehealth, extended one short deadline at a time. In November 2025 the American Physical Therapy Association reported that from January 31, 2026 therapists “will no longer be able to furnish Medicare Telehealth services.” Later legislation pushed the flexibilities out again, and the federal telehealth site now runs them through December 31, 2027. Licensure went the other way: the Physical Therapy Licensure Compact reports 38 states actively issuing privileges, with three more signed up but not yet issuing.
An engineer and an MBA
Nina Lu had a computer science degree from 2015 and had worked in venture capital. Katy Honda was an MBA candidate at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is the person listed as the company’s authorized official in the federal provider registry, titled COO. Honda told Poets&Quants in 2021 that she went to business school to start a company focused on healthcare equity and access.
Lu wrote the public thinking. In a January 2022 essay she answered the objection she kept hearing with computer vision, pose detection and repetition counting. She also wrote down what most founders leave out, which is what was not working.
From clinic to catalog
The organization NPI was enumerated on June 23, 2021, weeks before the Summer 2021 batch reached demo day. TechCrunch listed the company that September. Capital stayed small. PitchBook records an accelerator investment of $125,000 and two later rounds it does not size. CB Insights puts the total at $130,000 and names The MBA Fund and Y Combinator. No Form D appears in SEC EDGAR under any Comet Healthcare name.
PitchBook records a status change to out of business dated June 9, 2025. The brand did not stop. Today trycomet.com sells eight at-home programs at $11.99 a month, $29.99 a quarter or $59.99 a year, and an iOS app published under the copyright of Comet Healthcare Inc carries the line that matters: it is a fitness and educational app, not medical care. The old telehealth blog URL now serves that fitness homepage.
That is a real change in what is being sold. A licensed therapist evaluating a patient over video is regulated care. An exercise subscription is not.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Provider registration | NPPES organization NPI 1538738422, Comet Healthcare Inc, Alexandria VA. Enumerated Jun 23, 2021, active, never updated since. Authorized official Katelyn Nicole Honda, COO. Primary taxonomy 208100000X, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, not the 225100000X physical therapist taxonomy. No license number recorded. | Public record |
| Therapist licensure | The company said its clinicians were licensed physical therapists with added pelvic floor training, and named one. NPPES lists a Janelle Gibson, DPT, with physical therapist licenses in Colorado, Texas and Montana, NPI 1629444799. The registry does not link that record to Comet. | Company-stated |
| Securities and grants | SEC EDGAR full text search for Comet Healthcare returns zero hits, so no Form D. No NIH or NSF award, no ClinicalTrials.gov registration, no FDA 510(k) or PMA, no PubMed record. Checked Sep 23, 2026. | Not found |
| Payer coverage | Cash pay only, superbill on request, no payer contract at any point. Origin, a competitor, told Femtech Insider in 2026 that 95 percent of its care is in network and most patients pay under $36 a visit. | Independent |
| Evidence for the therapy | Cochrane 2018, CD005654: 31 trials, 1,817 women. Cure of stress urinary incontinence 56 percent versus 6 percent, RR 8.38, 95 percent CI 3.68 to 19.07, high quality. About one fewer leakage episode in 24 hours. | Peer reviewed |
| Evidence for remote delivery | A 2024 systematic review pooled 5 randomized and 3 cohort trials and found large effects on incontinence severity and muscle strength. A 2025 randomized trial of 50 women found mean ICIQ-SF 6.2 in the training arm against 12.5 in the education arm. A 2022 trial of 58 patients found hybrid and conventional care improved quality of life about equally. | Peer reviewed |
| Provider scarcity claim | The founder wrote that roughly 1,000 pelvic floor providers practice nationwide. No independent source for that figure was found. | Company-stated |
| Company status | PitchBook records out of business, Jun 9, 2025, and 4 employees. CB Insights lists it alive at seed stage, Seedtable active, the seed dataset behind this profile inactive. The website and app are live in 2026. | Sources disagree |
Read plainly: the therapy has strong randomized evidence, and remote delivery has a small consistent literature of its own. None of it is Comet’s. What Comet has on the public record is one provider registration from 2021 that was never updated, about $125,000 of disclosed capital, one line in a demo day roundup, and a product that has since left the regulated category entirely.
What to watch
- Whether the NPI is updated or deactivated. It has sat untouched since June 2021 while the product changed underneath it.
- Whether any clinical service returns. The current app disclaims diagnosis and treatment, which is correct for what it now is.
- Medicare telehealth eligibility for physical therapists, now running to December 31, 2027.
- Compact growth past 38 active states, which makes a national therapist roster practical.
- Whether capital ever shows up in a Form D. Nothing has yet.
In their words
“Comet Health is launching with a focus on pelvic floor physical therapy and already ran a proof-of-concept pilot in Virginia.”
TechCrunch, YC Summer 2021 demo day roundup, Sep 1, 2021 · Independent
“Last year, Katy and I embarked on a journey to redefine the $6 Billion Physical Therapy market in the U.S. through Comet Health.”
Nina Lu, co-founder, January 2022 essay · Founder
“This is particularly helpful for patients who require specialized physical therapy including pelvic floor physical therapy for which there are limited providers (~1,000) nationwide.”
Nina Lu, January 2022 essay · Founder
“I plan to continue to work on building Comet Healthcare with my amazing Co-Founder, Nina Lu.”
Katy Honda, co-founder and COO, Poets&Quants, Oct 11, 2021 · Interview
“Our clinicians are licensed physical therapists who received additional training, specialization, and certification in treating pelvic floor conditions.”
Comet Healthcare website, archived 2022 · Company
“Comet Health is a fitness and educational app. We do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.”
Comet Health iOS app listing, 2026 · Company
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordNPPES NPI registry, NPI 1538738422 and NPI 1629444799
- Public recordSEC EDGAR searches for Comet Healthcare, zero results
- Public recordWhich states are in the PT Compact
- Public recordTelehealth policy updates
- Peer reviewedPelvic floor muscle training for urinary incontinence in women, CD005654
- Peer reviewedPelvic floor muscle training in telerehabilitation: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Peer reviewedTwo randomized telerehabilitation trials for urinary incontinence
- IndependentAll the companies from Day 2 of Y Combinator’s Summer 2021 Demo Day
- IndependentRepresentation Matters at Stanford GSB, Katy Honda profile
- IndependentComet Healthcare profile, status and deal history
- IndependentComet Health profile, total raised and investors
- IndependentOrigin Raises Series B to Scale Hybrid Model for Women’s MSK Care
- IndependentHighmark Launches Virtual Pelvic Health Offering Powered by Sword Health
- IndependentTelehealth Flexibilities Extended Until Jan. 30, 2026
- CompanyComet Healthcare, Virtual Physical Therapy, pricing and FAQ
- CompanyComet Health programs and subscription pricing
- CompanyComet Health app listing and disclaimers
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
