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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  30
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 change happened after RealBenefits went commercial in 2006?
选项 A、If didn’t take community organizations as clients any more.
B、It started to charge clients for the service it offered.
C、Its service would not benefit low-income families.
D、It made huge profits and was financially well-off.
答案B
解析 事实细节题。由题干中的RealBenefits went commercial in 2006定位到第四段。从第二句中的paying customers和第三句中具体服务项目的费用标准的描述可知，商业化之后最重要的变化就是开始提供有偿服务。故[B]与之相符。第二句说到商业化之后该公司把服务的重点转移到了付费客户，而不再是社区组织和非营利性机构，但这并不意味着它完全把这些组织和机构排除在服务对象的范围之外，故排除[A]；第五段第一句就说At both ends，low-income families win，可知它所提供的有偿服务仍然惠及低收人家庭，故排除[C]；第六段第一句指出：由于获取资本的困难．RealBenefits仍然面临着发展的困境，故排除[D]。
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