Healthjoy CEO Justin Holland

Patient Engagement

Healthjoy Lands $60M for Benefits Navigation

Employees love health benefits almost as much as they hate navigating them, which is why Healthjoy closed $60M in Series D funding to simplify the process. 

The new investment brings the company’s total funding to $108M as it looks to build its platform into the leading user experience for both employees and HR departments. 

Simplicity and engagement are how Healthjoy plans to accomplish this. Its app is designed to serve as a unified front door to employee benefits, and includes all the good stuff you’d assume would make that happen: 

• An AI-assistant named JOY that helps triage users to relevant services 
• A 24/7 concierge team to answer any questions
• An “automated steerage” feature that guides members to lower cost solutions

Healthjoy’s stance is that a serious lack of awareness is what causes underutilization. Many HR departments have a robust network of services, but employees can’t use what they don’t know about.

• By housing every benefit in an employer’s package under one roof (medical, dental, vision, wellness initiatives, etc.), then serving as the engagement layer, Healthjoy is aiming to make the entire experience more seamless for everyone involved.

• Healthjoy combines its own user metrics with partner data to create comprehensive profiles of its members, allowing it to present them with relevant benefits and nudge them towards efficient options.

• The company also partners with virtual care providers like Teladoc and other benefit administrators to expand the solutions available to its members. It counts the ability to integrate with, as opposed to compete with, outside platforms as a key differentiator.

The Takeaway
As the health benefits space becomes more complex at the same time as many employers are growing overwhelmed with point solutions, HealthJoy’s strategy of simplifying the experience as much as possible seems to make a lot of sense. If Healthjoy can execute on its plan to drive higher engagement by connecting all utilization data within a single ecosystem, then plenty of employers would probably welcome the help in the battle for talent.

Prescription Assistance Made Easy

Synapse Medicine’s quick-deploy Prescription Assistance API and components can be up and running in less than a day and instantly connect your HCPs to the drug data and prescribing support they need in their everyday practice. If you’ll be at HLTH 2022, make sure to get an in-person demo and see how easy it can be to onboard reliable real-time drug data for your providers.

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The Wire

• Symptom Checker Showdown: Symptom checkers have been having a tough go of it recently, with new research in the International Journal of Medical Informatics finding that the overall performance of eight popular tools was… “questionable.” After testing the symptom checkers using 28 clinical vignettes from the MSD-Manual, researchers found an overall data-gathering efficiency rate of just 46%. Kahun’s AI clinical reasoning tool came out on top by a decent margin, and this scatterplot does a fantastic job conveying the relative performance.

• Hint Acquires AeroDPC: Direct primary care startup Hint Health just got a huge boost through the acquisition of AeroDPC, a practice management and EHR solution designed specifically for DPC clinics. DPC membership is up 241% from 2017 to 2021, and Hint is well-positioned to capitalize on the momentum with its HintOS platform that reduces the barriers to opening a DPC practice. AeroDPC will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary, but plans are in the works for a combined product to launch sometime next year.

• connectRN Closes $65M: connectRN recently closed $65M in debt financing to support the rapid growth of its staffing platform for connecting nurses to flexible work. The fresh funding will help connectRN expand to 40 states over the next few months, and while regular DHW readers might already be familiar with the platform, our recent Q&A with CEO Ted Jeanloz is the best place to catch up for those that want to learn more.

• Patient Experience’s Loyalty Impact: An Accenture survey found that patient experience is more important than ever for retaining patients, with 25% of respondents leaving their providers in search of a better fit in 2021. The 21k-consumer survey uncovered four factors that patients ranked as most important to their loyalty: location and availability (71%), digital engagement options (79%), ease of doing business (82%), and provider trust (84%).

• Hazel Health Raises $51.5M: School-based telehealth provider Hazel Health secured $51.5M in Series C1 funding (total funding now $112.5M) to expand its services for youth primary care and mental health needs. Hazel is now deployed in over 3k schools across 14 states, reaching nearly 2.5M students through its system that turns school facilities like nursing offices into virtual care delivery sites.

• Telehealth Use Drops: Patients are continuing to move away from telehealth, with only 45% of respondents to a new Stericycle survey using telehealth within the last year (down from 78% in 2021). Out of 1k respondents, 93% had their last primary care visit in person and 44% prefer in-person visits, while younger adults ages 18-34 were more likely to receive care at a non-traditional provider than those 55 and older (56% vs. 33%).

• VillageMD & Summit Potential Merger: Walgreens-backed VillageMD is reportedly exploring a hefty merger with 370-location medical practice Summit Health, potentially creating a combined entity worth $5B to $10B. Walgreens recently doubled its ownership stake in VillageMD through an additional investment of $5.2B (it now owns 63% of the primary care provider), and absorbing Summit would put it well on its way to achieving its goal of opening 1,000 new primary care clinics by 2027.

• Healthcare Lobbying Up 70%: New research in JAMA showed that spending on healthcare lobbying rose 70% over the past two decades, with lobbying expenditures totaling almost $714M in 2020 (up from $358M in 2000). The study found that the lobbying increase was driven primarily by pharmaceutical manufacturers and providers, while also being extremely concentrated in a small number of firms. The top 10% of firms were responsible for 70% of lobbying among payors, 69% among manufacturers, and 59% among providers.

• Nuvance RPM Launch: Nuvance Health launched the Neuroglee Connect RPM pilot program to provide remote support for patients with mild cognitive impairment. Neuroglee Connect uses brain-stimulating games and activities to enhance memory formation and cognitive functioning, allowing neurologists to track progress through a dashboard in order to modify treatment at early signs of deterioration.

• Text Outreach Reduces Readmissions: University of Pennsylvania researchers revealed that an automated texting outreach program following hospital discharge could be an efficient way to reduce readmissions. The study included 1,885 patients split between an intervention group (in-depth text-based outreach program) and a control (traditional phone call), finding that the texting program was associated with 41% lower 30-day hospital readmissions and 33% lower ED utilization.

• Dispatch & Home Instead Alliance: DispatchHealth and Home Instead entered a nationwide collaboration to provide DispatchHealth’s in-home acute care for infections, wounds, and minor sprains to Home Instead’s client base of elderly adults. The collaboration has now expanded to 30 markets after a successful pilot recorded an average NPS of 99 out of 100, while preventing unnecessary trips to the hospital among 55% of Home Instead clients using DispatchHealth.

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Creating an Exceptional Engagement Experience

With a surge in experience‑oriented disruptors entering the healthcare industry, patient engagement is becoming a crucial competitive differentiator. Get your copy of Nuance’s guide to  delivering intelligent interactions and a better experience at every touchpoint.

Hyperfine Brings MRI to the ICU

“It completely changes the way we think about MRI imaging.” Take a look at this video interview with Mass General’s Chief of Neurocritical Care to see how clinicians can use Hyperfine’s Swoop Portable MRI to eliminate care disruptions in the ICU by keeping critically ill patients in the unit throughout the neuroimaging process.