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Epic Comet, Assort Health, and Justifying AI Valuations
September 4, 2025
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Together with
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“I think what’s more likely than a bunch of bubbles bursting all at once is that there will be a lot more natural consolidation. Some type of reckoning is coming.”
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Flare Capital Partners’ Parth Desai on the healthcare AI race.
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A stellar report from Flare Capital Partners suggests that there’s some surprisingly sound justifications for the sky-high valuations we’re seeing with healthcare AI companies.
Numbers talk. The report – based on an analysis of 4,500 digital health VC rounds and an exec survey – found that a record 58% of deals involved AI companies in H1 [Chart: AI Funding].
- Over 10 healthcare AI startups joined the unicorn club in the last year, and the investor enthusiasm only kept surging after five exits over $1B: SmarterDx, Iodine Software, Machinify Health, Office Ally, and Tempus AI.
- That’s resulted in AI-focused companies commanding valuations 50% higher than the healthcare industry average [Chart: Valuations].
What’s fueling the fire? Companies that handle administrative tasks like revenue cycle management and contact center operations are leading the pack, at least for now.
- Administrative AI companies are shining by having LLMs help turn messy data into measurable ROI, but clinical support based on structured sources (ex. OpenEvidence) continues picking up steam [Chart: Category Adoption].
- One of the best charts unpacks the DNA of market leaders, and it turns out quick deployments and immediate ROI work well regardless of category [Chart: Leaders].
It’s not just FOMO. Flare’s exec survey found that half are already carving out over 10% of their IT budget for AI, and 83% plan to dial that percentage up going forward.
- There’s a meaningful level of product-led “pull” driving AI adoption, especially compared to the “push” that drove past cycles like EHRs.
- There’s also a high amount of confidence that AI startups will push into new areas (ex. scribing to RCM), and investors are giving them a lot of credit for unrealized growth based on what customers are saying about future budgets and expansion plans.
The Takeaway
Healthcare AI has moved from experimentation to execution, with wider adoption, bigger budgets, and value concentrating around market leaders. Flare doesn’t necessarily believe that justifies billion-dollar valuations for companies that are years away from profitability, but it at least sheds light on why the top players are blasting into orbit.
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Under the Hood of Navina’s AI
Navina’s AI engine harnesses over 600 proprietary algorithms to transform fragmented patient data into actionable clinical intelligence at the point of care. It’s shaped with the expertise of physicians to turn multiple data sources (EHR, HIE, claims, care gap files, etc.) into contextualized insights like suspected conditions or evidence for care gap closures – each linked back to the original source. Download the whitepaper to see examples of Navina’s AI in action.
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Next Generation Ambient Tech and Agents
The ambient AI transformation is already sweeping across health systems, reducing administrative burdens and improving patient outcomes. So, what’s next? Tune into this on-demand session to learn how systems like Carle Health and Denver Health are leveraging Nabla to eliminate Pajama Time and build a future where agentic AI unlocks true workforce sustainability.
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- Epic Introduces Comet: Epic officially unveiled Comet, a set of GenAI models trained on 100B data points from Cosmos’ de-identified patient records to predict likely clinical outcomes. When given a patient’s current state, Comet generates plausible future timelines that reflect real-world complexity – diagnoses resolving or emerging, complications arising, and care needs shifting – then surfaces relevant insights within clinical workflows. Research access is slated for early 2026.
- Assort Series B: Assort Health landed “about $50 million in a Series B round,” which vaulted the patient communication startup’s valuation to $750M according to TechCrunch. Assort’s AI voice agents are purpose-built for healthcare and automate tasks such as scheduling and appointment reminders, reportedly adapting to real-world feedback based on the needs of specific offices. Pretty eye-popping multiple considering the current client roster includes dozens of specialty care clinics adding up to about $3M in ARR.
- Virtual PT Reduces Costs: A study in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Journal showed that MSK patients who use Omada’s virtual physical therapy program had lower total healthcare utilization and MSK-related costs than those who used in-person PT. Median PMPM savings were more than $100 in the first six months, with median gross MSK savings per member over $1,000 at both six and 12 months. The positive ROI (1.8x) at both follow-ups fills in the evidence gap that PHTI pointed to when questioning the value of similar solutions in its virtual MSK report.
- Hartford + Abridge: Hartford HealthCare is rolling out Abridge’s ambient AI clinical intelligence platform following a successful pilot. Abridge has been compounding its momentum with hallucination mitigation and real-time prior authorization at the point of care, on top of already supporting over 55 specialties across outpatient, inpatient, and ED settings. Hartford cited all of the above as key drivers behind its decision to deploy Abridge’s platform system-wide.
- AHA Connected Care, Powered by Cadence: The American Heart Association is diving into care delivery through a new partnership with remote patient monitoring company Cadence. The duo is launching a virtual program to help hospitals support post-discharge heart failure patients at home while cutting down on 30-day readmissions.The program enrolls patients before they leave the hospital, equips them with connected devices, then delivers monitoring and proactive interventions through Cadence’s platform and clinical team.
- Inovalon Teams Up With Google Cloud: Data and analytics giant Inovalon is joining forces with Google Cloud to co-develop an agentic AI prior authorization system. The goal is to build a physician-facing agentic system that will comb through Inovalon’s vast data sets to assess a patient’s benefits and compare the allowances with the tests and services requested. The agent will then parse through historical EHR data, incorporate context from the patient’s wider health journey, and automatically generate ready-to-submit prior auth paperwork when necessary.
- ALIGNMT Seed Round: ALIGNMT AI raised $6.5M in seed funding to keep healthcare AI in check as adoption ramps up. CEO Andreea Bodnari, who formerly led the development of healthcare AI for Google and UnitedHealth, told Endpoints News that she founded the company after seeing the industry’s hesitation to adopt AI given the high stakes involved. The ALIGNMT platform monitors and flags risky AI behavior to help healthcare organizations remain compliant with regulations.
- Artisight OR Documentation: Artisight announced that its smart hospital platform can now autonomously document operating room procedures using computer vision. The new solution can detect and document patient entry and exit, procedure start and end time, and other key OR events directly within the EHR. This not only slashes the need for manual documentation during important procedures, but also enables real-time updates that enable more productive use of high demand resources.
- Healthcare C-Suite’s Take on AI: A report from Sage Growth Partners found that 57% of health system executives rank AI-based clinical solutions as their top technology initiative over the next two years, yet 49% also said appropriate AI use is among their top three challenges. About two-thirds of execs reported that they’re currently investing in AI to enhance patient care (same share as those investing in administrative AI), while 83% believe AI can improve clinical decision-making. Execs apparently expect the tech to improve quickly considering only 12% think current algorithms are “robust enough to rely on.”
- Predoc Lands $30M: Health information management startup Predoc landed $30M of Series A funding to put an end to “document chasing” in healthcare. The platform allows providers to access patients’ medical records from anywhere in the U.S. by capturing data from both digital and direct provider requests and using AI to organize it. Legacy HIM services companies only serve the top ~10% of the market because of high overhead, and Predoc will reportedly help open up the other 90%.
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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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Real Time Prior Auth at the Point of Conversation
Abridge is partnering with Highmark Health and AHN to solve the challenges and frustrations of prior authorization. The technology will compare, in real time, Highmark’s medical authorization requirements to the information that is being collected during the patient visit. If any pieces of required documentation are missing, Abridge will prompt the clinician to gather what’s needed. Read more about this game-changing partnership.
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