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Soda Health, Aya Goes Cross Country, and the First GLP-1 Showdown
December 9, 2024
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Together with
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“I think that most of the time what doctors really want when they’re asking for new solutions is a way to make the technology they’re using more invisible.”
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Medicomp Systems CMO Jay Anders, MD
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Soda Health is cracking open $50M of Series B funding to shake up supplemental benefits.
Medicare Advantage plans deliver $131B/year in benefit funds for transportation, fitness, and grocery programs – yet the impact often falls flat due to an outdated tech infrastructure that makes it difficult for members to take advantage of their benefits.
Soda’s Smart Benefits platform unlocks the full potential of these programs by rebuilding their core infrastructure with a modern payments stack and an expansive retail network:
- Members get a user-friendly way to understand where and how to use their benefits.
- Payors can scale benefit programs supported by Soda’s network of 50k retail locations (including Kroger, Albertsons, CVS) to optimize utilization and lift STAR ratings.
- Retailers get more member traffic to offer health products, food, and pharmacy services.
The secret ingredient is the retail network, which provides the data underpinning Soda’s biggest differentiator: personalized patient engagement.
- Soda’s “first-of-its-kind open loop fintech infrastructure” tracks item-level purchases in real time, allowing it to reward members for using their benefit dollars on products approved to fill gaps in their care.
- By connecting supplemental benefits with insights from retail data, Soda is uniquely positioned to deliver tailored outreach for closing care gaps (by encouraging preventative screenings, improving medication adherence, etc.).
The fresh funds will accelerate Soda’s expansion into new CMS-compliant benefit categories and add some extra fizz to its gap closure strategies, which will reportedly allow it to enter risk-based structures with MA and Medicaid plans.
The Takeaway
Soda isn’t here to build a better supplemental benefits platform, it’s here to rebuild the category from the ground up using a stronger infrastructure of retail partners, patient engagement, and care gap closure. Climbing utilization trends and dwindling capitation rates are pressuring MA plans from multiple fronts, so the time is right for a refreshing approach.
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Bridging Care Gaps for Underserved Populations
Is your health system, rural health clinic, or federally qualified health center struggling to reach patients with obstacles to receiving in-person care? This Clear Arch Health whitepaper explores how combining RPM with VBC can help facilitate proactive interventions, address social determinants of health, and get the most out of new CMS reimbursement pathways.
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Simplify RPM & Maximize Patient Engagement
Engaging patients at critical moments is essential for success. With Withings Health Nudges feature, care teams can send tailored messages to the screen of the blood pressure monitor— offering personalized support when they need it most.
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Payer-Provider Collaboration Essentials
With the economy shifting and healthcare regulations evolving, Medallion’s Elevate session with execs from MultiPlan and Clover Health tackled the big question: How can payer-provider collaboration future-proof your processes? Head over to the full discussion to see their five actionable takeaways for successful partnerships.
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- Battle of the GLP-1s: Topline results from the SURMOUNT-5 trial found that Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide leads to far greater weight loss than Novo Nordisk’s semaglutide, giving Lilly a boost in the race to become America’s go-to GLP-1. The first head-to-head trial comparing the blockbuster obesity drugs found that adults taking tirzepatide lost an average of ~50 pounds over 72 weeks, while those on Wegovy lost ~33 pounds. Both drugs mimic the GLP-1 hormone, but tirzepatide’s effectiveness could stem from the fact that it also mimics another metabolic hormone called GIP.
- Aya’s Cross Country Acquisition: Aya Healthcare acquired healthcare staffing competitor Cross Country Healthcare in a take-private transaction valued at $615M. The acquisition will diversify Aya’s coverage to include Cross Country’s clinical services in non-clinical settings like schools and homes, in addition to travel nursing, per diem, and permanent staff hiring in all 50 states. Aya is now the largest healthcare staffing company in the U.S., and has been quickly acquiring companies to round out its platform with patient volume predictions (Polaris AI) and recruitment / retention insights (Winnow AI).
- The Checklist for Strong AI Governance: With ambient AI assistants sweeping across the industry, Nabla put out a stellar checklist to help clinical leaders ensure every implementation is backed by strong AI governance. The checklist serves as a practical blueprint to safeguard AI governance as regulations continue evolving toward a universal framework, sharing key considerations and Nabla’s best practices on everything from model validation and data privacy to output reliability and cybersecurity.
- Bad Year for Data Breaches: A STAT analysis of OCR data showed that 2024 was another record year for health data breaches, impacting as many as 172M U.S. citizens. Unsurprisingly, 532 of the 656 breaches resulted from hacks and ransomware attacks, most notably the massive cyberattack on Change Healthcare earlier this year. The analysis points out that the Change breach is emblematic of a key problem: more consolidation means the potential impact of a single breach becomes larger.
- Amazon Adds Hinge: Amazon added virtual musculoskeletal care platform Hinge Health to Amazon Health Services, allowing people to easily check coverage eligibility through their employer or health plan and directly access MSK care if covered. Other recent additions include chronic condition management platform Omada, as well as mental health providers Talkspace and Rula. Amazon is clearly leaning in on growing its partner roster, but it hasn’t yet revealed how many users are actually seeking care through the service.
- FDA Issues AI Post-Market Rules: The FDA last week issued its final guidance document on predetermined change control plans for AI-enabled medical devices. The guidance creates a regulatory framework for AI developers to monitor their products after they’ve been approved and make adjustments to accommodate the fact that AI performance changes as algorithms are exposed to new data. The guidance applies to AI devices regulated through the 510(k), de novo, and PMA pathways.
- Corewell Brings on Abridge: Corewell Health inked a partnership with Abridge to roll out the ambient documentation platform to over 4,000 clinicians across multiple care settings, specialties, and workflows. The 21-hospital system kicked off the partnership after a 90-day pilot saw participating physicians cut their after-hours documentation time by 48%, and Corewell anticipates the benefits to continue compounding as it further integrates Abridge within its Epic platform.
- Healthcare’s Double Digit Cost Increases: Payors around the world are projecting medical costs to rise by 10.4% in 2025, which would mark the third consecutive year of double digit increases. According to a WTW survey, costs are expected to rise across the board in North America (+8.7%), Europe (+9.4%), Latin America (+10.1%), Asia Pacific (12.3%), and the Middle East/Africa (+12.1%). The increases come as healthcare systems worldwide struggle to keep up with high demand and limited resources, which 64% of payors expect to persist long-term.
- Make Room for Roon: Roon reeled in $15M of Series A funding to expand its health information platform to hundreds of new conditions. Since launching 18 months ago, Roon’s platform has helped give patients a “doctor in their pocket” to answer medical questions with short form videos that guide them through everything from serious illnesses and navigating IVF to conditions like PCOS and endometriosis.
- AI Boosts Breast Screening Outreach: An RSNA 2024 study detailed how an AI algorithm boosted breast screening compliance by directing patient outreach based on AI-generated scores. The scores were used to adjust outreach cadence over three months with text, voice calls, or voicemail at 272 imaging centers starting in 2019. In 6.6M patients, screening compliance was up 8% over four years after the program started, with the biggest jump among Black women (+12%), historically one of the most underserved groups.
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Join the Nabla Team!
Nabla is scaling up, and it’s looking for a Head of Marketing to lead its next phase of growth. This role will help broaden Nabla’s footprint and showcase the proven impact of ambient AI with a company dedicated to bringing joy back to the practice of medicine. Learn more and apply here.
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Curate, Create, & Share at the Point of Care
It’s hard to find a more unique vantage point on AI than Playback Health co-founder Dr. Langer, whose role as the Chair of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill allows him to actually use the platform he helped create. Head over to Dr. Langer’s latest blog to see how Playback is helping him spend more time caring for patients and enabling providers to “Curate, Create, & Share” at the point of care.
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Top Systems Scale Primary Care With K Health
Leading health systems are turning to K Health’s AI-driven primary care solution to give their patients access to high-quality care with wait times measured in hours, not months. Find out why K Health is the only clinical AI company partnering with top systems to scale fully integrated primary care experiences.
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