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Fortuna, Doximity Scribe, and More Reasons to Get Those Steps In
July 28, 2025
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Together with
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“Medicaid can sometimes feel like the Spider-Man meme, with everyone pointing fingers… That’s exactly why modernization and empathetic collaboration are so needed.”
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Fortuna Health Co-Founder and CEO Nikita Singareddy
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It never hurts to be at the right place at the right time, and Medicaid navigation platform Fortuna Health just landed $18M of Series A funding in the wake of one of the biggest shakeups the safety net coverage program has ever seen.
Medicaid is complicated. Each of the 56 Medicaid programs in the U.S. has its own evolving eligibility rules, documentation standards, and renewal timelines – none of which are easy for anyone to keep track of.
- Fortuna consolidates these programs into a single interface for patients and members, allowing them to manage their eligibility and applications while getting guided through the obstacle course.
- For anyone with some time to spare for an exhaustive overview of Fortuna and the broader Medicaid market, look no further than HTN’s stellar interview with CEO Nikita Singareddy.
“TurboTax for Medicaid.” That’s the basic pitch to Fortuna’s payor and provider customers.
- Managed care plans and payors get a way to offload backend compliance work and “become invaluable to their members” by putting a Medicaid navigator in their pocket.
- Health systems and other provider orgs get a way to maximize revenue / retention by helping more patients get (and stay) enrolled in Medicaid or navigate their way to financial support from partners like Cedar.
Over 71M people are currently covered by Medicaid, and One Big Beautiful Bill just reshuffled the rulebook for all of them.
- OBBB includes roughly $1T in cuts to safety net coverage, as well as new proof-of-work restrictions, documentation requirements, and more frequent eligibility checks.
- The CBO expects 10M people to lose coverage by 2034 as a result, and Fortuna plans to use its Series A to scale nationwide (it’s currently in 10 states) and invest in AI features that will help respond to the policy shifts.
The Takeaway
As long as Medicaid exists, there’s a place for software that makes enrolling easier. Medicaid infrastructure is long overdue for a healthy dose of AI modernization, and an extra $18M certainly won’t hurt Fortuna’s chances of being the company that makes it happen.
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Elevate 2025: Medallion’s Virtual Conference Returns September 17
Now in its fourth year, Medallion’s annual conference is back – bringing together healthcare leaders to explore this year’s theme: Elevate the present. Reframe the future of healthcare. Hear from industry voices like Tom Lawry, author of Hacking Healthcare, UPMC Chief Medical Information Officer Robert Bart, and many more. Reserve your spot now.
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Inside Fairview: A CMIO’s Perspective on Driving AI Innovation in Healthcare
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- Doximity Scribe Has Arrived: Doximity jumped on the ambient scribe train with the launch of its aptly named Doximity Scribe. Just like we’ve seen with Doximity’s AI assistant and other clinical workflow tools, Scribe is available at no-cost to physicians on the ad-supported networking platform and doubles as a magnet for new users. That seems like the right pricepoint to get more docs to sign up, and also makes Doximity the first to cross the finish line in AI scribing’s race to the bottom.
- Get Those Steps In: New research in The Lancet Public Health strengthened RFK’s case for strapping wearables to everyone’s wrist. The systematic review of 57 studies found that 7,000 daily steps is the magic number for health outcomes, and participants that reached that threshold saw a significantly lower risk of all-cause mortality (-47%), dementia (-38%), cardiovascular disease (-25%), and type 2 diabetes (-14%). Definitely one of the most practical metrics for tracking physical activity guidelines.
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- Feds Release AI Action Plan: The White House published its long-awaited action plan for AI implementation across U.S. industries, which managed to mostly avoid specifics for healthcare. The 22-page document acknowledges the slow pace of healthcare AI adoption, and advocates less regulation and a “try-first” culture for AI usage. The main recommendation was to establish AI Centers of Excellence where researchers, startups, and enterprises can deploy and test AI while sharing results.
- Remote CBT Works for Pain Management: A new study in JAMA found that remote cognitive behavioral therapy could be a lifeline for patients battling chronic pain, particularly in rural areas. Researchers divided 2,331 participants into three equal groups that received either remote video CBT with a health coach, a self-led online pain module, or usual care. After three months, 32% of the remote CBT group lowered their pain severity score by the “minimal clinically important difference” (>30%), compared to 27% of the self-led group and just 20% of the usual care group.
- Waystar Scoops Up Iodine: Revenue cycle management giant Waystar is acquiring AI clinical intelligence firm Iodine Software for $1.25B. The acquisition seems to target RCM’s most cumbersome tasks (and most promising growth areas), as Iodine’s capabilities in clinical documentation integrity, utilization management, and prebill revenue leakage identification reportedly expand Waystar’s total addressable market by more than 15%. Iodine’s massive clinical database will also support Waystar’s GenAI strategy, which targets everything from prior authorizations to claims management.
- Utilization Doesn’t Explain MA Struggles: A Trilliant analysis of national claims data found that aggregate Medicare Advantage healthcare utilization increased 19.9% across all care settings from 2018 to 2023, which “broadly aligns” with the recent financial challenges at MA payors. That said, overall utilization dipped -1.1% between 2022 and 2023, with most care settings seeing modest decreases and only a handful seeing a decent uptick (most notably a 3.6% jump in hospital inpatient visits). Trilliant concludes that the magnitude of the utilization increase relative to enrollment growth doesn’t fully explain the struggles at MA plans.
- AHA & Epic Tackle PPH: The American Hospital Association is teaming up with Epic to support the detection and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) at the point of care. The duo implemented a new toolkit to help users of Epic’s Stork Obstetrics Information System tackle PPH, which is responsible for 11% of maternal deaths and occurs in 3-5% of all pregnancies. The PPH toolkit includes risk assessments and embedded guides to support clinical decision-making and facilitate treatments – all within existing obstetric workflows.
- Practice Acquisitions Drive Up Costs, Not Care: Hospital acquisitions of physician practices are one of the biggest trends in healthcare, and an NBER study reveals that this consolidation is fueling “substantial” price increases without improving care quality. The study found that hospital-physician integration jumped 72% between 2008 and 2016, while the mergers led to hefty childbirth cost increases of +3.3% from hospitals and +15.1% from physicians “with no discernible effects on quality measures.” The AHA unsurprisingly dismissed the study as flawed.
- Tariffs Cool Off: Medical device companies are reeling in their estimates for tariff-related costs following a flurry of trade agreements from the Trump administration. Boston Scientific now expects to take a hit of about $100M, half of the forecast it made during its Q1 investor call when it seemed like steep tariffs on China and Europe would stick. Johnson & Johnson also lowered its projected tariff charge to $200M, while Abbott cut its estimate from “a few hundred million” to $200M just last week.
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Supporting Sustainable GLP-1 Weight Loss With Withings
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How Do You Know Your Ambient AI Is Working? OR Ambient AI Backed by Science
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- Navina AI “May Be Essential for Thriving” in VBC: Innovation lab Phyx Primary was left with only one conclusion after its independent evaluation of Navina’s AI Copilot: AI “may be essential for thriving” in value-based care. Physicians using Navina saw a 40% reduction in clinical review time, a 32% decrease in burnout, and lifted STAR quality ratings by 1.9 points. The experience scores were just the icing on the cake. Get the full report to learn more.
- Ambient AI – From Helicopter to Hospital: In emergency medicine, ambient AI solutions like Playback Pro have become a lifeline for both doctors and patients, allowing them to record and share important information amidst all the chaos. Tune in to this webinar recording to hear North Shore University Hospital and air medical transport provider Life Link III share how ambient AI is supporting clinicians in the highest-pressure environments.
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