Understand.com wins contract with financial unit of GE

Patients who research surgery at a Reno company's Web site now can finance the cost of a procedure at the same time.

Understand.com LLC arranged with GE Money's CareCredit (a consumer financing sector of General Electric Co.) to provide a financing module to its Web site, www.understandsurgery.com.

The site soon will include an icon where patients can find out the cost of a procedure and finance it online, says Darik Volpa, founder and chief executive officer of Understand.com.

The arrangement gives GE exposure to 2 million people a month who go online to research plastic surgery. "GE will finance $1 billion in health care procedures this year," says Volpa.

Understand.com also sells to doctors and to other medical Web sites. Surgeons don't have to explain a process; they can simply order CDs that demonstrate surgical procedures and give them to their patients.

And, the company's medical content is used on the Web sites of major medical firms such as Johnson & Johnson, which has 15-plus medical device divisions. The site it sponsored on sports surgery was built by UnderstandSurgery.com.

Stryker, an orthopedic device behemoth, also uses the Reno company's Web programming.

"Every key plastic surgery website in the world has our content," says Volpa. Among them is plasticsurgery.org, which gets a million visitors a month and will incorporate the online videos into its Web site.

UnderstandSurgery does the majority of its programming animation and graphics in Reno, where it employs 10 staff and contractors. The arrangement with GE Money will lead to increased staffing, says Volpa.

"We're actively recruiting for animation and graphics," he says.

The company started with orthopedics and in 2003 consolidated its operations in Reno. Since then, it's expanded the site to feature a comprehensive library that includes more than 100 interactive animations.