Health-Care Reform Creates Boon For Tech Startups

In spring 2009, tech entrepreneur Neil Smiley founded Loopback Analytics, a Dallas company that markets software to help hospitals reduce the probability that patients will suffer complications and have to be readmitted.

A year later, Congress passed President Barack Obama's health-care reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, which is often referred to now as "Obamacare." The law contains several provisions related to preventing unnecessary hospitalizations, including financial penalties for hospitals with high readmission rates.

Smiley came up with the idea for Loopback when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services started threatening to stop paying for hospital readmissions--but it was the health-care bill that really fueled the company's growth. Loopback's technology analyzes data to identify the most at-risk patients and match them with appropriate therapies. Smiley says there's so much demand for the product he's looking to double the company's headcount to 30 this year. [...]