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Category: Health Tech

Lyn Health Out of Stealth: A Niche Healthcare Navigator for Polychronic Patients

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Straight out of stealth and launching today! Lyn Health is out to provide specific, personalized care for patients with three or more chronic conditions in a way that’s meant to compete with healthcare navigator-advocators like Accolade, Transcarent, and Included Health INSTEAD of the crowd of digital health chronic condition management platforms like Teladoc’s Livongo, Vida Health, One Drop, Omada Health, etc. etc.

With employers and health plans getting increasingly burnt-out on point solutions for chronic care – leading many of those businesses to “platform out” themselves in recent years – will a niche-market navigator really stand-out? Is effective care for polychronic patient populations so specialized that it merits adding a specific, targeted service on top of the more general navigator, primary care provider, or chronic care platform solution that an employer or plan might already have in place?

Lyn Health’s CEO Rick Abbott stops by to introduce us to this seed-funded startup, which has raised $10M (backed by Summer VC) and has already attracted some yet-to-be-named health plan and Fortune 500 employer clients. Rick explains that market need that Lyn Health is aiming to satisfy, and how he’s leveraged what he’s learned about the cost of polychronic care from his past life at Premera Blue Cross into an approach that he believes will work to help employers both reduce spend and improve the day-to-day patient experience of managing multiple chronic conditions. Lyn Health is set-up to deliver care with its own physicians and social workers, connecting with patients in a digital-plus-bricks-and-mortar format. And, as for that business model, we get into the big question: at-risk or not?

Excited to meet this startup on the day of its official launch!

WTF Health: Early-Stage Med Device Startup Acorai is Turning Smart Phones into Heart Failure Monitoring Devices

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Acorai is an early-stage medical device startup working with Bayer to improve the way we manage the world’s 65 million patients living with heart failure by using their own smart phones. CEO Filip Peters shows the Acorai device, which is basically an extended smart phone case packed with four different kinds of sensor technologies that work together to measure the pressure inside a patient’s heart, by simply holding their phone against their chest. Of course, the real magic is the algorithm that turns these readings into early detection of a potential incident. How does this stack up against the status-quo way we’re currently caring for these types of patients? Filip says that, right now, the alternative for such monitoring is an IMPLANTED sensor, which many patients aren’t even able to get. As a result, most of the early warning signs of impending heart failure are missed; Acorai’s tech has the potential to be truly revolutionary as it’s able to detect the signs that lead to heart failure hospitalizations up to 30 days in advance.

Acorai has been selected as one of four “Growth Track” companies in Bayer G4A’s Digital Health Partnerships Program, and Filip talks to us about the potential Bayer sees in the daily data stream of information Acorai’s device makes available to cardiologists. A fascinating look at the future of cardiac care!

Inside FarmboxRx’s Groundbreaking Work in SNAP/EBT Benefits to “Eradicate Food Deserts Overnight”

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

HUGE news on the “food-as-medicine” front for Medicaid/Medicare Advantage beneficiaries! Now, they can get fresh fruits and veggies delivered directly to their doorsteps and they can pay for them using their SNAP/EBT benefits. FarmboxRx is behind this first-of-its-kind partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and here to talk through EXACTLY why this is groundbreaking (and what precedent it could set for the food-as-medicine movement in terms of payor support) is founder and CEO, Ashley Tyrner.

As Ashley explains it, FarmboxRx’s produce deliveries have been previously covered by Medicare Advantage and Medicaid, but only under the limited ‘over-the-counter’ healthy foods benefits those plans provide. In some states, this nets to just $20-$25 per month for a family of one. With the addition of SNAP/EBT funding, the budget available for spending on these farm-to-table deliveries expands to $164-$230 per month. A potential game-changer.

We unpack Farmbox further and get into how they’re differentiated from Amazon and Walmart, which also take food stamps online, but don’t deliver produce nationally like Farmbox does. This is a move Ashley describes as having the ability to “eradicate food deserts overnight.” There’s so much more about food insecurity, the way FarmboxRx is working with health plans to use food as member engagement and trust-building tool, and, of course, the backstory behind the business which is basically BOOTSTRAPPED (there’s some venture debt) and raising a Series A.

WTF Health: Accolade Navigates Itself into New Territory: CEO on Personalized Healthcare & Tech Infrastructure

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Healthcare navigator Accolade (NASDAQ:ACCD) is on the move. Not only are they now cruising in care delivery territory with two new primary care/mental healthcare offerings that let them personally guide their 9M members further into the healthcare system, BUT they’re also starting to talk more and more about their tech infrastructure and the “operating system” they’ve built to power that healthcare GPS with shared data and access.

CEO Rajeev Singh stops by to walk us through the strategy behind both sides of this (especially interesting when you consider his tech startup background in the context of those “operating system” statements) and why Accolade launched its own new category (personalized healthcare) as a framework for talking about the new course they’re charting.

We get into the September debut of Accolade Care, which bundles primary care and mental health in a per-employee-per-month model, and Accolade One, which wraps the full Accolade ecosystem around the Care product in a value-based model. At-risk models seem to be rising in popularity these days, and I get Rajeev’s perspective on why Accolade chose to go-to-market with one of those…and one that falls into the usual PEPM structure.

More interesting to me, however, is this whole “operating system” thing and how it’s playing out behind-the-scenes to strengthen integration across the businesses Accolade has acquired (Health Reveal being the most recent) and point solutions its partnering with like Virta, Headspace Health, Sword Health, RxSavings Solutions, and Carrot Fertility. The “purpose-built” architecture Rajeev describes sounds like it’s not only giving Accolade what it needs to better manage population health outcomes within its own offerings but that it, in and of itself, could be a new offering for partners who don’t want to build a tech platform themselves.

New directions explored…next moves discussed…AND Raj’s six-year CEO Anniversary celebrated! Watch now.

THCB Spotlights: Maya Said, CEO, Outcomes4Me

Today on THCB Spotlights, Matthew Holt talks with Maya Said, the CEO of Outcomes4Me, which works in the cancer patient empowerment space. Outcomes4Me is a patient empowerment platform that helps patients diagnosed or in active treatment for breast cancer understand their situation and treatment options, as well as connect better with providers to enable meaningful shared decision making. Maya tells us about the goals of Outcomes4Me, the current needs for enabling value-based care, and what the future directions are for Outcomes4Me, which recently closed a $12 million Series A round led by Northpond.

THCB Spotlights: Lindsay Jurist-Rosner, Wellthy

Today on THCB Spotlight, Matthew sits down with Wellthy’s CEO Lindsay Jurist-Rosner to talk about the healthcare system’s need to support caregivers. Wellthy works in the caregiving space, and Lindsay tells us about the company’s mission to provide a software and platform experience that offers organization and structure to support those who are caring for a loved one. Lindsay also talks to us about her personal inspiration for starting Wellthy and how their business model operates. Wellthy has raised $50 million in total and has closed up $35 million this summer.

THCB Spotlights: Chris Gervais, CTO of Kyruus

Today on THCB Spotlight, Matthew talks with Chris Gervais, the CTO of Kyruus, which began in the world of fixing scheduling for hospital systems. Chris talks more about their recent acquisition of HealthSparq in the last year and what this acquisition means for the future of Kyruus and the audience it serves. Kyruus’ original concept was having good rich accurate and complete provider data. Ultimately, the aim is to build out a rich provider directory spanning a large number of the US provider population, as well as all these other care options for patients to find, that builds transparency and trust.

Rumor Check with Vida Health’s CEO: Buyer Sentiment on Virtual Care, At-Risk Models, Mental Health

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF Health

To hear Vida Health’s CEO Stephanie Tilenius talk about what she’s hearing from payers, providers, and employers about at-risk value-based models, the shift to virtual care, and the growing importance of mental health services as a culture-builder for businesses forced into a part-virtual-part-in-office world, you get a sense of how her past work leading the various payments and commerce businesses of Google, eBay, and PayPal probably comes in handy. For example, the shift to virtual care, she says, is, “like the Internet in 1999…It’s happening.”

We get an update on exactly how Vida Health is making it happen themselves, and how they expect their newly expanded at-risk model will help. Vida’s always been fees-at-risk on physical outcomes related to diabetes management, hypertension, etc. BUT the mental health side of their offering (which experienced 6000% growth year-over-year during the pandemic) is now at-risk on outcomes too. With so much happening across the industry to move to value-based models, we deep-dive with Stephanie to hear what she’s hearing from her clients, including client-and-investor Centene and hear about growth in the employer market where she sees a major shift in how employers are thinking about healthcare as the new sexy job perk. “Instead of snacks or transportation or other benefits,” says Stephanie. “It’s all about healthcare.”

THCB Gang Episode 72, Nov 18 1pm PT – 4pm ET

Following last week’s sojourn in Europe where I couldn’t quite pull an impromptu European-based THCB Gang together, we are back on home turf. Join me at 1pm PT – 4pm ET Thursday 18th November when I’ll host delivery & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), the double trouble of vaunted futurists Ian Morrison (@seccurve) & Jeff Goldsmith, and Consumer advocate & CEO of AdaRose, Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia).

The video is below and if you’d rather listen, the “audio only” version it is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels a day or so after the episode — Matthew Holt

How Unhappy are Patients with Info Coming from Providers, Payers? Pega’s Survey Shows It’s Not Good

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Is this a big surprise? Even during Covid, Pega’s annual 2,000-person Patient Engagement Survey shows that 63% of patients are unhappy with the communication they receive from their payers and providers. Which begs the question… just how bad was it before? (Answer: 86% unhappy– yikes!)

Pega’s VP of Healthcare & Life Sciences, Kelli Bravo, has run this survey three years and counting and drops in to share the highlights (if we can really call them that) of the survey results and how she thinks enterprising young health tech startups can capitalize on the opportunity to help.

For those in the business of trying to talk to patients — which is all of us — let’s look at this as a wake-up call. Let’s stop speaking “health care” and start using language everyone can understand about their care, what it will cost, and what all the options really are. Pega is attempting to do its part in that department, and we get an update on how they’re fairing at helping to make healthcare feel more like retail. The rise of the healthcare consumer is a real thing. Now, with new data to back up claims about what they’re demanding in terms of how they prefer to be talked to and communicated with.

Click to see the data and report on Pega’s site.

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