Digital health · Home medical equipment
Equipt Health
A Y Combinator company that set out to be the missing logistics layer for prescription medical devices at home, and sold sleep apnea care direct to patients as Helio Sleep. The public record shows a cash-pay supplier that never enrolled with Medicare.
The notice on its own page
Most startups bury the legal text. Helio Sleep gave a piece of federal boilerplate a page of its own.
“Notice to Medicare and Medicaid Beneficiaries. Medicare and Medicaid will pay for medical equipment and supplies only if a supplier has a Medicare or Medicaid supplier number. Helio Sleep does not have a Medicare or Medicaid supplier number.” The page, captured in November 2024, adds that the beneficiary is personally and fully responsible for payment.
That disclosure sets the boundary of everything Equipt Health built. It could prescribe. It could ship. It could not bill the largest buyer of home medical equipment in the country.
The gap it was aimed at
Equipt Health was founded in Seattle in 2021. The pitch was infrastructure: care was moving into the home, and the piece nobody had turned into a product was the equipment. Its Y Combinator listing calls out CPAP machines, blood glucose monitors, oxygen concentrators and breast pumps as the missing layer of the digital health stack.
Sleep apnea was the wedge. The consumer brand, Helio Sleep, sold a telehealth consult, a disposable home sleep apnea test read by a board-certified sleep physician, then a device. Tests came from Ectosense and Itamar. Treatment started with oral appliances and positional devices, the myTAP and the Zzoma, and later added positive airway pressure.
The timing was not accidental. Philips Respironics recalled a large population of ventilators, BiPAP machines and CPAP machines in June 2021 over degrading sound abatement foam. By April 2024 a federal consent decree was in force, which the FDA describes as “Restricting, with limited exceptions, the production and sale of new CPAP machines, BiPAP machines, and other devices at several Philips Respironics facilities in Pennsylvania and California until certain requirements are met.”
Two founders out of digital health
Y Combinator’s directory record says “Rebecca Weisinger is the co-founder and CEO of Equipt Health, which she started with Max Greenfeld in 2021. She earned a degree in Chemistry from Harvard University.” Of her co-founder: “Max Greenfeld is the co-founder of Equipt Health. He previously led data and engineering projects as an early employee at Q Bio and Genapsys. He completed a PhD from Stanford.”
Their Launch HN post in March 2022 lists the pedigree behind the idea, Counsyl, Truepill, Medallion and Q Bio, and is candid about the hard part: “There are regulatory barriers to operating a provider network and a licensed durable medical equipment supplier.” Weisinger is the authorized official on the NPI record, filed as CEO in July 2021, taxonomy Durable Medical Equipment and Medical Supplies.
Cash pay, and the ceiling it sets
“We currently accept cash payment, and we’ll be adding insurance coverage,” the founders wrote in 2022. Nearly three years later the FAQ still said: “We don’t currently take insurance, but we focus on providing effective treatments at great prices to make them more affordable and accessible to consumers.”
For sleep apnea that ceiling is federal. Medicare covers a 12 week trial of CPAP therapy and pays a supplier to rent the machine for 13 continuous months before the patient owns it. To keep paying past the first three months, a Medicare DME contractor states, “There must be objective evidence of the beneficiary’s adherence to the use of the PAP device.” The threshold is four hours a night on 70 percent of nights across a consecutive 30 day window, reviewed at an in-person visit. That rhythm of rental months and adherence downloads is the economic engine of home CPAP, and a cash-pay supplier is not wired into it.
Getting wired in is not a pricing decision. Medicare supplier standards require that “A supplier must be accredited by a CMS-approved accreditation organization in order to receive and retain a supplier billing number.” Accreditation, a surety bond and the CMS-855S enrollment application are the gate. Nothing in the public record shows Equipt Health passing through it.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| NPI registration | EQUIPT HEALTH INC., NPI 1235700097, enumerated Jul 2, 2021, active. Taxonomy 332B00000X, Durable Medical Equipment and Medical Supplies. Authorized official Rebecca Weisinger, CEO. Not updated since enumeration. | Public record |
| Medicare enrollment | Not listed in the Medicare.gov supplier directory. Searches covering 716 suppliers within 100 miles of the Seattle address and 131 near the Kaneohe mailing address returned no match, Sep 24, 2026. | Public record |
| Medicare billing, as stated | The Helio Sleep care page says the company holds no Medicare or Medicaid supplier number and that beneficiaries pay in full. Company statement and directory agree. | Company-stated |
| Medicare DME utilization | No row for NPI 1235700097 in the CMS DME by Supplier public use files for 2021 through 2024. CMS excludes suppliers with 10 or fewer beneficiaries, so absence fits either no Medicare business or a very small one. | Public record |
| Accreditation | No accreditation by a CMS-approved organization found. Supplier standard 22 makes it a condition of holding a billing number. | Not found |
| FDA and clinical record | No 510(k), no PMA, no registered trial, no PubMed entry. Equipt resold cleared devices made by others. | Not found |
| Securities filings | No Form D. EDGAR full text search returns zero documents mentioning either name and no registrant exists under either, Sep 24, 2026. | Public record |
| Geographic reach | TechCrunch reported in 2022 that it was “certified to deliver DME (durable medical equipment) and HME (home medical equipment) devices across 24 states”. The FAQ captured in March 2025 says “We operate in all 50 states.” No licence list supports either, and the two are never reconciled. | Unreconciled |
| Named customers | None. The 174 clinic pages archived under heliosleep.com/clinics are a referral directory: they say that for conditions outside its scope of care Helio will connect the patient to licensed and accredited facilities nearby. | Not found |
| Batch | Y Combinator’s record gives S21, Summer 2021. TechCrunch in October 2022 called it a Winter cohort company, which the YC record does not support. | Differs from YC |
| Operating status | PitchBook records a deal type of Out of Business dated Dec 23, 2025. Tracxn lists one employee as of June 2026. The last archived page at heliosleep.com is Mar 22, 2025. | Data provider |
Read plainly: the diagnosis and prescription side worked, and readers said so in public. The supply side never crossed the line that turns a reseller into a Medicare supplier, inside a category whose largest buyer pays by rental month and adherence data. Nothing in the record suggests fraud or harm. It suggests a company that ran out of room.
What to watch
- Whether NPI 1235700097 is ever deactivated. It has sat untouched since July 2, 2021.
- Whether either founder reappears in a new company.
- The next round of DMEPOS competitive bidding, in a temporary gap period since January 1, 2024.
- Whether any cash-pay sleep company clears Medicare accreditation. That is the test Equipt Health never took.
In their words
“There are regulatory barriers to operating a provider network and a licensed durable medical equipment supplier.”
Launch HN post, Helio Sleep, March 2022 · Founders
“We currently accept cash payment, and we’ll be adding insurance coverage.”
Launch HN post, Helio Sleep, March 2022 · Founders
“Given the global shortage, it can be difficult to get machines right now. We’re adding CPAP in a few months, and we’re also offering CPAP alternatives to help people get care.”
Founder reply to a patient waiting for a machine, Hacker News, March 2022 · Founders
“As a licensed reseller, we’ll be providing devices from established manufacturers.”
Founder reply on sourcing, Hacker News, March 2022 · Founders
“If you can do something about the idiotic Philips recall and the lack of replacement units, that would be great.”
Hacker News commenter, March 2022 · Reader
“Lofta does sell CPAP machines whereas Helio doesn’t.”
Hacker News commenter comparing providers, March 2022 · Reader
“We want to help a lot of the new medical device companies and support them as they go to market.”
Rebecca Weisinger, CEO, to TechCrunch, October 2022 · Independent
“A supplier must be accredited by a CMS-approved accreditation organization in order to receive and retain a supplier billing number.”
Medicare DMEPOS supplier standard 22 · Public record
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordNPPES record, Equipt Health Inc., NPI 1235700097
- Public recordDMEPOS supplier directory search
- Public recordMedicare DME by Supplier, NPI query, 2021 to 2024
- Public recordEDGAR full text and company name search
- Public recordMedicare DMEPOS supplier standards
- Public recordEnroll as a DMEPOS Supplier
- Public recordPAP Devices, Continued Coverage beyond the First Three Months
- Public recordCPAP therapy coverage
- Public recordRecalled Philips Ventilators, BiPAP Machines, and CPAP Machines
- Public recordDMEPOS Competitive Bidding, temporary gap period
- Public recordCapture history for heliosleep.com and equipthealth.com
- IndependentAs healthcare goes remote, Equipt Health brings medical hardware to the home
- IndependentThe Startup Battlefield 200: Climate tech and health tech edition
- IndependentLaunch HN: Helio Sleep (YC S21), with 185 comments
- Data providerHelio Sleep profile, deal history and status
- Data providerEquipt Health profile, funding and team
- Data providerEquipt Health (YC S21) investors and mentions
- CompanyY Combinator company record, batch S21, founder bios
- CompanyHelio Sleep care page, Medicare and Medicaid notice
- CompanyHelio Sleep FAQ, insurance and states served
- CompanyHelio Sleep how it works, dental and sleep centre pages
- CompanyEquipt Health about page
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
