- The primary-care company One Medical is snapping up competitor Iora Health in a $2.1 billion deal.
- Investors have poured hundreds of millions into companies blending in-person and virtual care.
- Still, many of these services are inaccessible to patients.
Companies rushing to upend primary care have raised hundreds of millions of dollars this year — and they're at the heart of some of the most closely watched deals in healthcare.
The companies' mission: Make it easier for patients to stay in constant contact with primary-care providers, keeping costly and dangerous health conditions at bay.
Many of these companies operate their own physical clinics but also offer patients various digital services like telehealth visits, online booking, and the ability to text with providers. They typically charge membership fees, which are sometimes subsidized by employers or payers, though they're generally not accessible to patients who can't pay the fees out of pocket or who are on income-based assistance programs like Medicaid.
Some, like Iora Health and Oak Street Health, are focused on seniors. Others, like One Medical, are marketing more broadly, including to younger patients — though One Medical plans to buy rival Iora in a $2.1 billion deal. And still others, like Tia, are specifically designed to meet women's healthcare needs.
As in-person care bounces back after a year of mostly virtual primary care, these companies are forging a path toward permanently blending physical services with virtual ones.
Read on to meet the companies we think are poised to change how primary care is delivered both inside and outside the doctors' office.
This article was updated on July 1 with new information on Parsley. A version of this article was previously published in 2020.
One Medical
What One Medical does: When the San Francisco-based primary-care startup One Medical opened for business in 2007, its goal was to make it easier and more convenient to see a doctor. And over the next decade, it became the primary-care startup to beat.
It's now in the process of acquiring its competitor Iora Health in a bid to reach growing numbers of senior patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. It's also increasingly focused on signing up employers to offer care to their workers.
While One Medical does accept some private Medicare plans, it doesn't take Medicaid and doesn't have immediate plans to do so, the company told Insider. The company charges a $199 annual fee and bills your insurance.
Funding raised: After going public in 2020 and raising $245 million in its initial public offering, One Medical is trading with a market cap of $4.8 billion.
Number of clinics: One Medical has more than 100 clinics across 13 markets and 598,000 members as of the first quarter of 2021, according to the company.
VillageMD
What VillageMD does: Chicago-based VillageMD was founded with the aim of giving primary-care doctors more resources to manage their patients. Instead of cutting down the number of patients doctors see each year, founders set out to add remote-monitoring services, transportation aid, and other services to keep patients healthier.
VillageMD's doctors — some of whom are internally employed and others who partner with the company — reach patients on commercial insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare plans. The company works with insurers to get paid based on the quality of care instead of the number of visits.
Instead of building new practices from scratch, VillageMD taps existing primary-care practices with established networks of patient and helps them transition their payment models and software. The company partnered with Walgreens to open 600 in-store clinics across the country.
Funding raised: Founded in 2013, the company had raised $216 million as of 2019. In 2020, it scored a $1 billion investment — including $250 million in equity — from Walgreens as part of its partnership.
Number of clinics: VillageMD is responsible for about 1.6 million patients across more than 100 clinics nationwide.
Oak Street Health
What Oak Street Health does: Chicago-based Oak Street Health provides primary care to seniors with a special focus on patients eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. It works with Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare to manage other aspects of seniors' health, including by driving them to and from appointments or offering them social events.
Funding raised: Oak Street went public on the New York Stock Exchange last year with a $328 million initial public offering. As of June, it had a market cap of $14.1 billion.
Number of clinics: Oak Street Health has 90 locations across 14 states and plans to have have more than 120 in 19 states by the end of the year. It serves about 110,000 patients.
ChenMed
What ChenMed does: Miami-based ChenMed — founded 32 years ago by Dr. James Chen — manages the health of seniors in Medicare Advantage plans. The group gets paid by health plans to keep a set number of members healthy through services like on-site pharmacies, transportation to and from appointments, exercise options, and social networking with other seniors.
Funding raised: The company is family owned.
Number of clinics: ChenMed operates more than 75 clinics across 12 states and plans to open 26 new medical centers in 2021 in Florida, Louisiana, Texas, and Michigan. ChenMed declined to disclose patient numbers but said they're in the tens of thousands.
Iora Health
What Iora does: Boston-based Iora works with "sponsors" — mainly employers or private health plans for the elderly (known as Medicare Advantage) — that cover a monthly fee for primary care. Iora also has care teams including nurses and other health professionals that support primary-care doctors.
Doctors care for a group of about 500 to 700 patients, depending on where they practice and patients' health. Its competitor One Medical in June announced plans to acquire Iora Health as part of its expansion into senior care.
Iora says the approach is working, including by reducing hospital admissions by 50% and emergency-room visits by 20% over 18 months in one group of Medicare patients.
Funding raised: Founded in 2010, the company has raised $349 million from investors like GE Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Temasek Holdings, and Humana. In June, One Medical announced its $2.1 billion all-stock deal to acquire Iora.
Number of clinics: Iora has 47 clinics across 10 markets including in states such as Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, and Colorado. It serves about 38,000 patients.
Forward
What Forward does: Forward offers primary-care services for about $150 a month, which covers unlimited visits, blood testing, vaccines, and genetic testing and also gives patients access to lower prescription-drug prices. The company employs a small but fast-growing movement of pediatricians, family-medicine physicians, and internists.
Funding raised: The company has raised more than $400 million, including its latest $225 million fundraising round, which drew investors such as Marc Benioff and The Weeknd. That deal pushed its valuation over $1 billion, Reuters reported.
Number of clinics: Forward has 10 locations including in Southern California, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC.
Read more: Silicon Valley has a fresh take on a new movement that could be the future of medicine
Tia
What Tia does: Tia offers gynecology, mental-health and primary-care services both online and in person to patients for about $180 a year. Membership doesn't cover the cost of appointments, but the company said it accepts insurance. It also offers "care coordinators," who can help patients calculate insurance coverage and any out-of-pocket costs.
Locations in New York and Los Angeles are open for in-person and virtual care; a new site in Phoenix is open only for virtual care but will accept patients in person in the fall, and another clinic will open soon after in San Francisco.
Tia is one of the few primary-care startups to accept Medicaid through partnerships with providers that already treat Medicaid patients; the company said it was accepting Medicaid patients at its Phoenix location.
Funding raised: Tia has raised $32 million.
Number of clinics: Tia has three locations, with a fourth one planned for San Francisco. The company has served about 7,000 women.
Parsley Health
What Parsley does: Founded by Dr. Robin Berzin in 2016, Parsley Health is built around "functional medicine": treating the underlying causes of disease. A $150 monthly fee gives patients access to primary-care visits, nutrition plans, supplement regimens, and in-depth genetics and microbiome testing. Parsley does not take insurance.
In 2019, Parsley entered into pediatrics, offering similar services at a price of $129 a month. Last year, the startup took its business national through a virtual service. It now costs $175 a month and is available in 46 states.
Funding raised: The company said it had raised more than $100 million to date.
Number of clinics: Parsley has two physical locations in New York and Los Angeles. A previous San Francisco location closed during the pandemic, but those patients have still continued virtual care, a spokesperson said. Parsley did not share a specific patient number but said it was in the tens of thousands.
Heal Health
What Heal does: The company's network of providers do house calls and telehealth visits across California, Illinois, Georgia, DC, Northern Virginia, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Seattle, and Washington state. Doctors are online 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day.
The direct-to-consumer service is covered by most insurance plans, but patients without insurance can expect to pay $159 for a house call and $79 for a telehealth visit.
Funding raised: Heal has raised a total of $200 million from investors, including the musician Lionel Richie.
Number of clinics: The company doesn't have physical locations but does dispatch primary-care, preventive-care, urgent-care, and pediatric-care providers in more than 15 cities.
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