Digital health · Remote therapeutic monitoring
Copper Health
A San Francisco startup that runs remote therapeutic monitoring billing for physical therapy clinics over text message, taking a cut of the Medicare reimbursement instead of charging software fees. It has no FDA record, no SEC filing and, as of this research, an open question about whether it is still operating.
No software to buy, no upfront fee
Copper Health's pitch to a physical therapy clinic is simple: you do not need to run remote therapeutic monitoring yourself. The company enrolls a clinic's patients, texts them check-ins about their home exercise program, tracks the data CMS requires, documents it, and bills it, all without the clinic paying a subscription. Copper Health is compensated out of the RTM revenue it helps the practice collect.
The homepage states the company adds roughly $150 per patient per month in new revenue, claims about 85 percent patient utilization and three times the home-exercise-program engagement, and says the service has "no upfront or fixed fees." An earlier version of the site, archived in 2025, described the same offer with a different number, up to $165 per patient per month.
The gap: RTM codes clinics leave unbilled
Remote therapeutic monitoring is a set of Medicare billing codes CMS introduced in the 2022 Physician Fee Schedule to pay clinicians for tracking a patient's recovery between visits, things like home-exercise-program adherence, reported pain and functional progress. Unlike remote patient monitoring, which is limited to physicians and certain non-physician practitioners and covers physiologic data such as blood pressure, RTM can be furnished and billed directly by physical therapists, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists.
Copper Health's own explainer lays out the code set clinics are supposed to use: an initial setup code billed once per episode (98975), a device-supply code based on days of monitoring data in a 30-day window (98977), and monthly treatment-management codes for provider time (98980, with 98981 as an add-on), plus lower-threshold codes CMS added effective January 1, 2026. The pitch to a clinic is that this is billable work therapists are often already doing between visits, and Copper Health's job is to make the documentation and claims process turnkey.
Two NYU grads, one pivot from inbox automation
Joanne Wang and Tommy Guo are Copper Health's co-founders, and Copper Health is not the company they walked into Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch with. That company was Airfront, an AI email automation platform. Both are NYU graduates: Tommy studied Computer Science and joined Stripe as its first new-grad hire in New York, where he worked on search infrastructure and helped redesign Stripe's API to accept multiple currencies. Joanne studied Computing and Data Science plus Finance, and worked in tech M&A investment banking at Evercore before moving into B2B software investing at General Atlantic.
Y Combinator's own company page for the "copper-health" URL still carries the Airfront launch post, unedited, describing the two founders' backgrounds and the email-automation idea rather than remote therapeutic monitoring. Whatever the internal timeline, the founders, the YC batch (Winter 2024) and the San Francisco base carried over from Airfront to Copper Health.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
There is no FDA 510(k) or PMA record, no registered clinical trial, no NIH award, no NSF award and no PubMed paper tied to Copper Health. There is also no SEC Form D on file for the company under its own name. What exists instead is a scatter of third-party trackers, several of them disagreeing with each other on basic facts like where the company is based, how many people work there, and whether it is still in business at all.
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Founders | Joanne Wang (CEO) and Tommy Guo (CTO), NYU graduates who first built Airfront, an AI email automation tool, in the same Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch before the company became Copper Health. Confirmed across Y Combinator's own platform, FounderTrace and Altss. | Independent |
| Pricing claim | The current homepage says the service adds roughly $150 per patient per month. A 2025 archived version of the About page said up to $165 per patient per month for the same offer. | Company-stated |
| Named clinic customers | The homepage has a "Trusted by" section for physical therapy practices but names none. No independent article or case study naming a customer clinic was found. | Not found |
| FDA and clinical evidence | No FDA 510(k) or PMA record, registered trial, NIH award or PubMed paper for Copper Health appears in the relevant federal databases. The company's own RTM explainer says the underlying monitoring must run through an FDA-defined medical device or software, but does not name which device it uses. | Not found |
| SEC filings | No Form D for Copper Health, Inc. or a related entity was found in SEC EDGAR as of September 2026. | Not found |
| Total funding reported | PitchBook lists $500,000 raised to date, tied to a single Accelerator/Incubator deal dated January 1, 2024, consistent with a standard Y Combinator investment. No other investor or round is named anywhere else. | Independent |
| Employee count | GetLatka estimates about 4 people, reaffirmed for 2026. LinkedIn's company page lists 11 to 50 employees. Tracxn lists 1 employee as of June 2026 and names only Tommy Guo as founder, based in New York rather than San Francisco. | Differs across sources |
| Company status | PitchBook labels Copper Health Out of Business effective February 24, 2026. The company's own site, whose RTM explainer text was updated for CPT codes effective January 1, 2026, and its LinkedIn company page were both reachable when this page was researched in September 2026. | Differs from PitchBook |
Read plainly, this is a small, recently founded billing service with a live product and a coherent pitch, but almost nothing independently verifiable behind it. No regulator, court or federal grant program has touched it. The trackers that do cover it cannot agree on headcount, city, or whether it is even open.
What to watch
- Whether PitchBook's Out of Business status gets corrected, confirmed, or explained anywhere else, given the company's own site and LinkedIn page remained live as of this research.
- Any named physical therapy clinic customer, case study, or reported patient count.
- A first SEC Form D or any reported funding round beyond the standard Y Combinator investment.
- Independent press coverage of Copper Health, which does not yet appear to exist.
In their words
“We are both graduates of NYU, and we both grew up in families of small business owners which inspired us to become entrepreneurs ourselves.”
Joanne Wang and Tommy Guo, co-founders, Y Combinator launch post for Airfront, 2024 · Company
“Tommy studied Computer Science and joined Stripe as the first new grad hire in NYC.”
From the founders' own Y Combinator launch post for Airfront, 2024 · Company
“Our mission is to empower physical therapists by simplifying Remote Therapeutic Monitoring (RTM), enabling them to provide continuous care beyond traditional in-person sessions.”
Copper Health About page, archived 2025 · Company
“RTM is a Medicare-recognized care model that lets a physical therapy practice stay connected to a patient's recovery between visits.”
Copper Health homepage, RTM explainer, accessed Sep 2026 · Company
“Copper Health is an RTM partner, not another subscription.”
Copper Health homepage, accessed Sep 2026 · Company
“We handle the entire RTM process so there is no additional work for you.”
Copper Health LinkedIn company page, accessed Sep 2026 · Company
Related companies
Sources
- CompanyCopper Health homepage, RTM explainer and pricing claims
- CompanyCopper Health About page
- CompanyCopper Health company page
- CompanyJoanne Wang profile
- CompanyCopper Health company profile
- CompanyLaunch YC: Airfront, AI-first email platform with built-in automations
- IndependentCopper Health company profile, funding and status
- IndependentCopper Health company profile and founder listing
- IndependentCopper Health Revenue 2025: $440K Est. ARR
- IndependentCopper Health Funding, Complete Analysis
- IndependentCopper Health, YC Company Profile
- IndependentCopper Health (YC W24) Founder Genealogy
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
