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Optura, Acquisitions Galore, and the Future of HR Tracking
By Jason Barry
June 8, 2026
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Together with
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“No one is getting rid of Epic. Epic will kill you.”
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Millie CEO Anu Sharma
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Today we’re taking a look at Optura’s $17.5M Series A to fuel the growth of its ROAI platform. VCs were probably busting out their checkbooks the second they heard the acronym.
My bad for jinxing Wemby last week.
Jason
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The only thing healthcare orgs love more than AI is ROI, and Optura just raised $17.5M of Series A funding to give them the best of both worlds with its ROAI platform.
It’s time for a Return on AI Investment. Leadership teams across the industry are facing tighter margins, more compliance exposure, and heightened board scrutiny around their AI investments.
- As payers and providers shift AI gears from proof-of-concept to performance, the big question becomes which initiatives – if any – are driving measurable value.
That’s where Optura comes in. The ROAI platform is designed to answer three key questions.
- How healthy is our AI program?
- Which of our AI initiatives are generating a return?
- Does our roadmap support further innovation?
Optura takes a three-pronged approach to finding the answers. First, it works directly with C-suites to get organized around AI and evaluate ideas against their business priorities.
- That looks like systematically mapping an organization’s existing data into a unified knowledge layer so every decision is grounded in how that org operates.
- It then scores and ranks use cases against organizational priorities, cost, and readiness before translating the top priorities into AI agents. Optura’s forward-deployed engineers help operationalize the agents while making sure they stay aligned with key priorities.
- The third step (that many companies still miss) is closing the loop. Optura continuously measures how AI contributes back into the P&L, quality scores, and care delivery – creating a flywheel that strengthens future initiatives.
The traction metrics back up the strategy.
- Optura actively manages $2B of AI initiatives through the platform.
- It’s tracked over $120M of new value – otherwise known as ROAI.
- More than 250 healthcare AI use cases have been identified as value-drivers.
The Takeaway
Optura could probably crush it just by sitting on the trademark for ROAI. Instead, it raised $17.5M to build real relationships with healthcare orgs and prove why “its love language is showing value.”
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Start Practicing With a Partner
What began with notes now supports the work that surrounds them. From conversations to clinical questions and follow-ups, Heidi brings the full clinical day into one platform. See why clinicians across the country are making Heidi their trusted AI Care Partner.
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DoxGPT Nabs a New Name – and Big Upgrades
The tool formerly known as DoxGPT is now called Ask, and it’s packing more upgrades than just the name. Ask’s new agentic reasoning model delivers better, faster answers to physician’s most complex clinical and workflow questions – with the same verified outputs, journal access, and drug dosing they already know and trust. Discover the difference and Ask today.
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- Next Gen Heart Rate Tracking: Google just unveiled a new way for people to better understand their heart health using the cameras they already have in their pocket. The Nature paper introduced a PHRM system that passively tracks HR and resting-HR using front-facing smartphone cameras to capture video of the user’s face in the seconds after face unlock events. PHRM applies deep learning to estimate HR with a mean absolute percentage error <10% compared to ECGs, then integrates the HR measurements into an RHR estimate with a mean absolute error of less than 5 beats per minute (comparable to most wearables).
- MetroHealth + Artisight: MetroHealth is teaming up with Artisight to implement the Smart Hospital Platform across nearly 500 patient rooms spanning five facilities. The deployment will bring Virtual Nursing, Virtual Sitting, and integrated AI services to MetroHealth’s clinical teams, integrating directly with Epic and its existing nurse call and clinical communications infrastructure. It was also refreshing to see the success metrics spelled out in plain English: staffing efficiency and cost reduction, throughput and length-of-stay improvement, fall rate reduction, HCAHPS improvement, and boosting caregiver satisfaction scores.
- Clarify Gets Loyal: Clarify Health acquired patient activation platform Loyal Health to build what the duo is calling “the industry’s first closed-loop network intelligence engine.” The logic behind the move is that Clarify supplies the intelligence (where patients need to go and how networks are performing), Loyal supplies the activation (engagement, CRM, and provider data tools), and together they can run the full loop from referral to scheduling to measured outcome. Clarify will fold Loyal’s tools into its Meridian platform.
- athenahealth AI Overhaul: athenahealth is adding 80+ new AI features to its athenaOne platform as it looks to “eliminate manual administrative work entirely across the ambulatory revenue cycle.” The AI capabilities target the highest-friction points in the revenue cycle – errors with patient coverage, coding, prior authorization, and claim denials – where administrative burden and revenue loss are most acute. Early results from features already live in athenaOne show a 30% increase in recovered payments on coding-related denials, a 16% reduction in insurance-related denials, and AI-powered voice agents completing most prior-authorization calls in under an hour.
- Patients Denied Recommended Care: The latest Commonwealth Fund survey found that more than 1 in 5 privately insured U.S. adults were denied coverage for doctor-ordered care in the past year. Of the 4,589 people surveyed, 21% said they had either a prior auth denial or a claim denied after care was already delivered. About 41% of those who experienced a prior auth denial said it delayed their care, and 28% said their health problem worsened as a result. A similar share (43%) of those who had a claim denied said it led to medical debt they’re still chipping away at.
- Elsevier Acquires Wellsheet: Elsevier acquired Wellsheet as it joins the race to become the ground truth for clinical evidence at the point of care. By combining ClinicalKey AI’s peer-reviewed evidence base with Wellsheet’s EHR data model, Elsevier’s integrated offering will bring patient‑specific guidance inside the workflows where clinical decisions are made. The ultimate goal is to close the gap between a patient’s actual data and the published evidence base, surfacing both in one place so clinicians don’t have to toggle between the chart and the literature.
- Trust, But Verify: New research from Wolters Kluwer found that doctors still don’t fully trust AI, but that doesn’t mean they’re checking the outputs. The survey of 355 clinicians and 254 patients showed that 74% of clinicians are concerned about AI hallucinations, with just as many saying that they’re confident in their ability to “determine whether an answer is clinically valid without consulting an outside source.” With that in mind, it makes slightly more sense that only 77% said they’ll take the extra step to verify AI outputs.
- Elation Finds Its Voice: Primary care EHR vendor Elation Health rounded out the M&A bonanza by acquiring Aster to fold voice AI-driven front-office automation into its EHR and practice management suite. The move targets the administrative grind that bogs down independent and small primary care practices (Elation’s core market), such as scheduling, patient intake, and routine phone-based tasks that voice agents can increasingly handle without staff. The AI front-office land grab is heating up for independent practices just as much as enterprise health systems.
- App Store for AI-ECG: HeartSciences partnered with Bunkerhill Health to debut a major platform update headlined by a new AI-ECG Algorithm Marketplace. The marketplace unlocks two major advantages: (1) clinicians at any-size facility gain access to the model, (2) AI-ECG developers get a path to commercial distribution with a recurring, SaaS-based revenue model that doesn’t require them to build out their own infrastructure. The economics are also aided by an established reimbursement pathway, with assistive AI-ECG assessments eligible for roughly $136 each.
- Virtual GI Care Shows Promise: A large study in JMIRbrought good news for patients managing notoriously difficult to treat gastrointestinal conditions. Researchers followed 11,345 patients who received virtual multidisciplinary GI care from Oshi between 2021 and 2025, with a vast majority seeing symptom improvement and 89.8% reporting total symptom control from the program. Results scaled with engagement: patients with four or more appointments had a 92.4% probability of symptom improvement (compared to 69.6% among those with two or three total appointments).
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The Agentic Platform for Your Environment
Your care plans. Your patients. Every health system is unique, which is why Tucuvi tailors its agentic platform to the day-to-day realities of care delivery at each of its partners. With configurable protocols and seamless EHR integration from day one, LOLA is the AI voice agent care teams trust to reach every patient. See LOLA handle real care workflows with your use cases today.
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State of Payer Enrollment and Credentialing
Over half of provider orgs are losing revenue due to credentialing delays – with many missing out on over $1M annually. Medallion’s new report unpacks the forces quietly undermining operational and financial performance, and how leaders across the industry are addressing them. Check out the full report to get insights tailored to your role and org type.
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- 8 Keys to Gain an AI Edge in VBC: As value-based care models evolve and competition intensifies, healthcare leaders are seeking practical strategies to improve performance across risk, quality, and financial outcomes. Head over to Navina’s roundup of eight key insights from VBC leaders to learn how aligning AI-powered tools with organizational priorities and clinician needs can help secure a measurable competitive edge in value-based care.
- Any Use Case, Any Specialty: Bunkerhill’s Carebricks platform doesn’t stop at surfacing insights. It translates them into real-world action. From automating prior auths to closing care gaps, Carebricks lets health systems design and deploy AI agents for any clinical or operational need – without adding to anyone’s manual workload. Learn how Carebricks can automate actions for your patients today.
- Better Health Through Virtual-First Primary Care: For patients, positive health outcomes are driven by strong relationships built on trust with health systems and providers. Hear how Ovatient’s fully EHR-integrated, virtual-first care approach is helping primary care patients like Tito Santiago reach their care goals and build a stronger relationship with The MetroHealth System.
- Redefining Patient Monitoring for Obesity & Diabetes: Weight management programs live and die by adherence. Discover why partners like Calibrate, 9am Health, and Wondr Health trust Withings to keep members weighing in, with cellular-connected scales that deliver instant weight insights, full body composition data, and the lowest possible barrier to action throughout their weight loss journey.
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