To achieve success in value-based care preparations, suppliers should make investments closely in generation and partnerships. Alternatively, maximum federally certified well being facilities (FQHCs) — safety-net suppliers licensed by means of the federal government to offer low cost care — merely don’t have the size nor capability to thrive in those care fashions.

Yuvo Well being — a New York Town-based startup based to deal with this drawback — closed a $20.2 million Sequence A investment spherical on Wednesday.

The spherical, which brings the corporate’s overall investment to $27.5 million, was once led by means of Mastry Ventures. Different buyers integrated AlleyCorp, HLM Mission Companions, AV8 Ventures, New York Ventures, Course 66 Ventures, VamosVentures and Social Innovation Fund.

Yuvo was once based in 2021 to offer FQHCs with the executive and controlled contract services and products they want to be able to prosper within the value-based care setting.

“Obviously, nowadays’s U.S. healthcare machine is damaged, as represented by means of the deep well being fairness and get right of entry to issues, with low-income communities having so few avenues to hunt number one care. If no longer for FQHCs, many communities would have 0 get right of entry to to number one care. However sadly, FQHCs battle to receives a commission equitably for the give a boost to they supply, making it much more tricky for them to serve the people who require healthcare get right of entry to,” Yuvo CEO Cesar Herrera mentioned in an interview.

To allow value-based care, Yuvo acts as a risk-bearing entity for FQHCs. In contrast to maximum different suppliers around the nation, those neighborhood well being facilities are regulatorily prohibited from taking over drawback menace, Herrera identified — this significantly limits their talent to meaningfully take part in value-based care fashions.

Yuvo solves this factor by means of contracting immediately with payers — Medicaid, Medicare and business well being plans — for quite a lot of menace preparations. The startup then companions with FQHCs, by which those well being facilities delegate the chance in their attributed sufferers to Yuvo.

The corporate differs from different value-based care enablement startups, like Aledade and Agilon Well being, as a result of it’s particularly adapted for FQHCs and their distinctive wishes, Herrera mentioned. In contrast to different corporations, Yuvo “takes its type an important step ahead” by means of if truth be told bearing the whole drawback menace for its companions, he argued.

“Maximum different suppliers are nonetheless required to undergo some quantity of drawback menace. Since FQHCs are prohibited from doing so, we also are no longer allowed to move that directly to our FQHC companions,” Herrera defined.

To make sure it’s effectively managing the chance of its FQHC companions’ sufferers, Yuvo deploys its “value-based care ecosystem,” he mentioned. This comes to generation — comparable to information aggregation, analytics and point-of-care equipment — and services and products — like care control, menace adjustment and high quality interventions.

“This ecosystem is payer-agnostic, so our FQHC companions will have the ability to leverage this give a boost to for all their sufferers. Additionally, there is not any price to our FQHC companions for taking part in those preparations. By means of opening up this extra earnings flow, we no longer simplest gas our personal enlargement, however determine monetary enlargement and balance for our FQHC companions as neatly,” Herrera declared.

The startup has been running only in New York, however it’s the usage of its Sequence A finances to scale its succeed in to Ohio. It just lately started partnerships with Group Circle of relatives Observe and My Group Well being Heart, two FQHCs in Ohio. A few of Yuvo’s New York-based well being middle companions come with Lengthy Island Make a choice Healthcare, Callen Lorde, Boriken Group Well being Heart and Joseph P. Addabbo Circle of relatives Well being Heart.

The corporate continues to be ready on ultimate information from its 2022 pilot value-based care association in New York, however Herrera highlighted that Yuvo was once ready to protected value-based care preparations with six well being plans throughout Medicaid and Medicare for its FQHC companions. 

“Sadly, none of our FQHC companions would had been ready to qualify on their very own another way,” he mentioned.

Photograph: PeterPencil, Getty Pictures

Katie Adams (kadams@medecitynews.com) is a senior reporter for MedCity Information masking suppliers and healthcare generation. In the past, she labored as a healthcare generation editor at Becker’s Clinic Overview. Her journalism level is from DePaul College in Chicago, the place she continues to be founded.