Ingenuity - New Orleans City Business

MD TechnologiesTechnology lets doctors manage complex practicesIn one respect, MD TechnologiesInc., the Baton Rouge-based developerof Medtopia HealthcareInformation Systems, is a classicexample of entrepreneurism from theWhy-didn’t-somebody-think-of-thisbeforeschool.In another, it’s something of a rarity: ahigh-tech success story based inLouisiana.“I don’t think it really matters whereyou’re located,” saidChairman Jose Canseco.“I don’t think doctorscare if it’s a SiliconValley product or not. Ifit works, it works.”In just a few years,MD Technologies haslined up an impressivelist of clients, includingEmory University andsome 113 physicians and clinicsnationwide. It’s chief product,Medtopia, is an Internet-based applicationthat allows physicians and staff tostreamline and better manage the tangleof information that comes with operatinga medical practice today — patientName: MD Technologies Inc.Location: Baton RougeCEO: William DavisProduct: Medtopia, an Internetbasedapplication that allowsphysicians and staff to managetheir practices.records, accounts, claims, inventoryand human resources — and concentrateon their primary mission of deliveringquality health care.The Medtopia concept developedover many years, Canseco says. In theearly 1990’s, Canseco, who is an attorney,and business partner Rick Marcosowned a company that administered astate-sponsored children’s health program,keeping track of billing, collectionsand medical procedures.Electricalengineer WilliamDavis, now MDTechnologies presidentand CEO, developedsoftware that allowedthe partners to computerizeand automatecompliance information.At the time, it wasa novel idea, one that soon evolved intosmall medical practice managementsoftware and, in 1998, the Internetbasedmanagement applicationMedtopia.The company’s 2003 revenues were$323,897 and its projected revenues inFounder Jose Canseco and CEO William Davis of MD Technologies.2004 are $600,000.Technologies has managed to so farCanseco and Davis — cofounder raise $3 million of its $4 million goal.Marcos has since left the company Even though Medtopia’s usersand state — have had little time to rest don’t care whether the technology’son their accomplishments. Fierce origins lie in Silicon Valley or down oncompetition keeps the company, the bayou, a home base in Louisiana,which has two dozen employees, on rather than Austin or Atlanta, hasits toes; Canseco says it will deploy made it tougher to line up financing.three new “extremely cutting-edge” But the struggle has been worth it,products in the third quarter of 2004. Canseco says.And MD Technologies launched an “I would do it all again,”he says.“I trulyinitial public offering last year — an believe that we’re doing something great.”inauspicious time to take a technologycompany public, perhaps, but MD— Russell McCulleyLOUISIANAPRODUCTIONC A P I T A LPioneers in the field of film tax credit brokering14A 2004 Innovator of the Year