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The RealBenefits Company Seek Capital Favor About one-third of Americans who quality for public assistance haven’t signed up

admin2013-04-03  28
问题                 The RealBenefits Company Seek Capital Favor
    About one-third of Americans who quality for public assistance haven’t signed up. That amounts to millions of people needlessly going without food stamps, low-income housing or health insurance.
    This trouble is what RealBenef its, a Boston-hasd software start-up, was created to solve. The five-person firm’s Web databae substitutes easy-to-use screening and enrollment tools for complicated government paperwork. So far RealBenefits has connected nearly 100,000 families to more than $371 million in government aid since 2000.
    Yet along with this success, Real-Benefits, which began life as a nonprofit, faced the same dilemma that many social enterprises do: how to scale up without selling out. "No software firm is going to attract donors easily, even a nonprofit," says Sharon Oster, dean of the Yale School of Management and an expert on social entrepreneurship.
    "And to grow, you need access to equity capital."
    So in 2006 , RealBenefits went commercial. Still tucked under the umbrella of founder Community Catalyst, the sales staff began slowly refocusing its energy on paying customers like hospital chains, governments and school districts rather than the community organizations and nonprofits that had previously peppered its client list. A subscription-based service, RealBenefits charges a fee that ranges from $ 10,000 for, say, a homeless-services group to six figures on the high end. "Our model was to find large healthcare providers whom be willing to pay because they were actually increasing reimbursements and minimizing uncompensated care by using our technology," says CEO Enrique Balaguer.
    At both ends, low-income families win. Whereas an uninsured patient going to the emergency room once faced a bill for thousands of dollars, now, using RealBenefits, hospital staff can screen him to see if he is qualified to file a claim with Medicaid. One Massachusetts hospital, Baystate Medical Center, reported a 50% increase in the number of Medicaid reimbursements it received in 2006 by using RealBenefits.
    Nonetheless, RealBenefits was still struggling to expand because of the difficulty of accessing capital. So the firm set out to find a buyer willing to continue its social mission. It eventually settled on TriHealix, a Connecticut-based health-care IT company.
    The June 2008 deal was worth $ 3 million to $4 million, Balaguer says.
    For RealBenefits, the transaction allowed it to tap into a larger sales and marketing force. The firm now aims to expand into at least 15 states over the next two to three years. "Our three core goals-to maximize benefits to families, effect policy change and to create additional capacity— remain in place," Balaguer says. "And being profitable is a major component of that." It’s a target that will most likely pay dividends to the whole community.
What seemed to be the problem of RealBenefits before the year 2006?
选项 A、People were not interested in its service.
B、It had too much load serving a great number of clients.
C、It was nonprofit and in short of financial support.
D、It was likely to be sold for a more promising future.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。题干问的是2006年之前RealBenefits公司所面临的问题是什么，第三段讨论的是该公司所面临的困境：how to scale up without selling out，而后面的引语对此作了解释：没有软件公司能够轻易得到捐助，即使是非营利性的公司。由此我们可以推断出RealBefenits所面临的是资金短缺的问题，即[C]。第二段所描述的该公司所取得的巨大成绩来看，还是有很多人对它提供的服务感兴趣，故排除[A]；它的客户确实很多，但这是它成立的初衷，因此不会构成该公司的负担，故排除[B]；最后两段确实提到了RealBenefits被收购，但这是2006年商业化之后的事情，也排除[D]。
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