HTD Health Interoperability Lead Brendan Keeler

Startups

Hippocratic Closes Series C to Fuel Patient-Facing Agents

Rising tides lift all boats, and the venture-backed surge in AI startups just helped boost Hippocratic AI’s valuation to $3.5B on the back of $126M in Series C funding.

Do no harm. Hippocratic’s “safety-focused” AI agents perform almost any low-risk, patient-facing task under the sun. 

• That includes appointment scheduling, patient intake history, SDOH surveys, health risk assessments, post-discharge outreach, and even chronic condition management.

• They don’t diagnose patients or prescribe medications… at least not yet.

The Polaris Safety Constellation Architecture makes it all possible. Hippocratic’s healthcare LLM constellation leverages multiple specialized models that “double-check the primary model to ensure accuracy and safety.”

• The company then performs output testing, human evaluations, and cross-validations to make sure its models’ real-world performance lives up to their simulated testing.

• Hippocratic layers the safety talk on thick in its messaging, which is probably a decent idea considering the early pushback it received for replacing human workers and some past lawsuits.

Hippocratic is moving quickly. In just 15 months since commercialization, it’s established partnerships with over 50 major health systems, payors, and pharma clients in six countries.

• Many of those health system partners have also become investors after being “very impressed” on the safety front, including Universal Health Services, Cincinnati Children’s, and WellSpan Health.

• The AI agents have already expanded to more than 1,000 use cases and completed upwards of 115M patient interactions – with no reported safety issues.

The nine-figure round sets the tone for the next chapter. Hippocratic earmarked the funding to usher in an “era of abundance” that healthcare has never seen before.

• At the tactical level, that will involve fueling expansion through mergers and acquisitions, accelerating product development, and leaning in on international growth.

The Takeaway

Whether business makes bubbles or bubbles make business, raising another $143M from industry insiders makes it seem like business is booming at Hippocratic AI.

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.

Join Nabla at Ending Clinician Burnout Summit

Nabla is partnering with the Ending Clinician Burnout Global Summit 2025 (Nov 6-7, virtual), a global community working together to reimagine healthcare and build lasting solutions to the clinician burnout crisis. This two-day event will bring together leading institutions like Mayo Clinic, Duke Health, and Johns Hopkins to design systemic changes that protect clinicians and strengthen patient care. Learn more and register here.

The Wire

• UnitedHealthcare Slashes RPM: UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage and commercial plans will only cover RPM for two conditions next year: heart failure and hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. The world’s largest private payor decided to dramatically scale back coverage after deciding that RPM is “unproven and not medically necessary” for conditions ranging from diabetes and hypertension to COPD and mental health. The policy cited nearly 30 studies to back up that conclusion, although UHC quickly got pushback for “cherry-picking those studies and drawing arbitrary conclusions.”

• Ambience Conditions Advisor: Ambience Healthcare debuted an AI-driven Conditions Advisor to address one of the biggest challenges in inpatient care: ensuring clinicians have a real-time view of each patient’s health. Conditions Advisor analyzes the complete patient record, including data from outside hospital records, to surface clinical signals that support potentially missed diagnoses. The AI keeps clinicians in control of decision-making while creating documentation that accurately reflects patient complexity and supports accurate coding.

• Govt Shutdown Slows IT Investment: A Black Book survey of 107 IT vendors suggests that many hospitals are reducing IT spending to offset funding gaps from the ongoing government shutdown. Respondents said that buyers are shifting investment to “must-haves,” with just over half seeing increased demand for revenue-driving solutions in areas like RCM, denials prevention, and patient access. About two-thirds (68%) report that new RFPs are being held or bumped, while 41% noted deferrals from customers purchasing longer-term items like platform upgrades or data initiatives.

• athenahealth AI Encounters: EHR-native AI capabilities are all the rage, and athenahealth just introduced an AI-native clinical encounter that transforms the EHR from “a system of record into a collaborative assistant.” The opt-in experience anticipates clinicians’ needs, surfaces relevant insights, and drafts documentation / orders / diagnoses based on the medical conversation. It’s the latest in a string of big moves that includes other AI upgrades to athenaOne and a new partnership with Datavant to automate the exchange of medical records.

• WebMD Ignite Debuts Pulse: WebMD Ignite announced the launch of its Ignite Pulse growth solution to help health systems to reach the right consumers, providers, and ROI as AI reshapes search. Pulse leverages modern performance metrics such as “response curves and persuadable-lift analysis” while combining de-identified condition, demographic, and health interest data to build predictive segments that reach consumers and HCPs with performance-optimized campaigns.

• Popai Progress: Popai Health just raised $11M to close care coordination gaps with voice AI. The technology enables care teams to identify at-risk patients and social barriers by capturing critical insights shared during care coordination calls. Health systems like Essen Healthcare and Clover Health are already using the Popai platform to standardize care pathways while improving quality and performance metrics by more than 20%.

• ACA Premium Hikes: The anticipated spike in ACA premiums came into focus after previews of 2026 coverage options showed that patients are facing massive price hikes. A KFF analysis showed that plans are raising monthly premiums for marketplace coverage by an average of 26% across the country, with some states like Colorado sending out notices to inform residents that coverage costs could double. KFF reports that higher medical costs and rising prescription prices are also driving up premiums.

• Mayo Clinic Platform_Orchestrate: Mayo Clinic just took the lid off Mayo Clinic Platform_Insights, a new program designed to give more healthcare orgs access to the system’s digital expertise, data-driven insights, and clinical knowledge. Platform_Insights delivers the expertise to healthcare providers through “a guided path to reduce the digital divide created by the rapid evolution of AI.” The new offering arrives in the wake of Mayo Clinic Platform_Orchestrate, which recently launched to provide a single access point to Mayo’s de-identified clinical data and international partner network.

• Google + b.well: Google inked a partnership with b.well to “put consumers in control of their health data” and enable more personalized care experiences. While details were sparse on how they plan to accomplish that, the release mentioned that b.well will support new Fitbit health capabilities, most likely the AI-powered health coach that was announced last month. The Fitbit health coach adapts advice to personal health metrics, and b.well looks like Google’s path toward integrating longitudinal health records.

• Viz.ai AI Agents for Patient Summaries: Viz.ai launched a Viz Assist suite of AI agents that combine imaging and EHR data to identify critical patients and surface real-time insights. Viz Assist generates AI summaries that provide “a near complete picture of the patient” by integrating Viz’s FDA-cleared imaging algorithms that proactively scan for signals that indicate patient changes and alert clinicians. The launch represents a major expansion for Viz as it moves beyond its core medical imaging offerings to the broader clinical workflow segment.

10 Strategies to Expedite Provider Credentialing

Lagging provider credentialing workflows can create a wave of unexpected care delays and financial setbacks. Sidestep these pitfalls by tuning into Medallion’s recording of 10 Key Strategies to Expedite Provider Credentialing and see how your organization can keep a well-oiled team and patient care intact through the ever-evolving changes seen in healthcare.

Measuring Real ROI From Ambient AI

In a groundbreaking report, Abridge shares a new methodology for measuring the ROI impact of ambient AI at a more granular level than ever before. Abridge partners are now getting a precise look at changes in wRVUs, HCC capture, time spent in notes, and much more. Four health systems also share their results across many of these metrics. To learn more about the technology behind this breakthrough and to see some of the data, download the report here.

The Resource Wire

• Are You Invisible on AI Search? Your next patient is asking ChatGPT. But unless your healthcare company has content that answers their questions, you won’t show up. Tely AI fixes this by analyzing your niche, identifying what patients and partners look for, and publishing expert-level content to make you visible on Google AI, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Launch your AI agent in 5 minutes and get your first article on us.

• Supporting Sustainable GLP-1 Weight Loss With Withings: Leading digital health companies and health systems are supporting safe and sustainable GLP-1 weight loss with Withings Health Solutions. See how care teams are using Withings’ suite of remote patient monitoring solutions to prevent muscle loss, combat plateaus, and drive better outcomes for their patients.

The Industry Wire

1. FDA rocked by latest personnel controversy as Tidmarsh resigns.
2. FDA to discuss health risk of chatbots at advisory meeting. 
3. Trump administration nears cost agreement with drug makers.
4. Medicare cuts 2026 reimbursement rates to specialty physicians.
5. Prospect clashes with regulators over plans to close two hospitals.
6. AI pilots are costing health systems millions. 
7. Kimberly-Clark to buy Tylenol maker despite Trump autism claims.
8. Healthcare M&A lags 2024’s pace.
9. Male doctors get mammograms to raise screening awareness.
10. Maine health system apologizes to 531 (living) patients declared dead.