To New Beginnings & Continued Success!
For those of you who popped Champagne and placed fresh oysters on ice to start your New Year’s celebration, your chances of opening one of the oysters to behold a magnificent pearl inside were about one in a million.
Many primary care providers (PCPs) may feel like they have similar odds in keeping their patients healthy while keeping their own heads above water. It may seem like an unattainable goal to predict which patients are most likely to be at risk and intervene successfully before symptoms emerge or acute events occur (while simultaneously keeping practices running and fending off burnout). But what if we could improve those odds?
At Pearl Health, it’s our mission to help PCPs transition from a system that requires them to simply care for the patients already in their waiting rooms to one that rewards them for providing more proactive, whole-patient care. We’re proud of our progress on this mission, including scaling our network more than 20x since 2022, forming a strategic partnership with Walgreens to help providers and health systems succeed in value, and further improving our systematic approach to reducing medical costs and improving patient outcomes by surfacing timely “clinical pearls” to providers.
Below are some pearls from 2023 that give us confidence we’ll continue to beat the odds as we ring in the new year. Cheers!
#1 $75M Series B to Fuel Growth & Accelerate Innovation
We had an auspicious start to 2023, announcing that we raised $75 million in an oversubscribed Series B funding round, led by Andreessen Horowitz’s Growth Fund and Viking Global Investors, with follow-on funding from AlleyCorp, SV Angel’s Growth Fund, and other leading investors.
“This latest round of funding, combined with our previous investments, will allow us to expand our network and accelerate the development of innovative solutions that place providers at the center of healthcare delivery and cost management,” said Michael Kopko, Pearl Health Co-Founder and CEO.
Throughout 2023, this new round of funding positioned Pearl to expand our company’s reach within primary care, develop new partnerships, broaden the offerings available to our provider partners, and invest more in research and development.
“Pearl Health has done a great job of developing software to help providers achieve their goals around value-based care,” said Scott Kupor, Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, who joined Pearl Health’s Board of Directors.
#2 Strategic Partnership with Walgreens & Expanding Partnerships Ecosystem
Strategic Partnership with Walgreens
In 2023, Pearl launched a strategic partnership with Walgreens to expand access to value-based care in collaboration with community-based primary care physicians. This partnership is focused on delivering exceptional healthcare locally and will enable primary care providers to deliver more comprehensive, coordinated care to their patients, particularly those in the most vulnerable communities, where the ‘last mile’ is difficult to traverse.
“Walgreens is committed to being the partner of choice for providers and health systems looking to transition quickly and effectively to value-based care and improve outcomes in the communities they serve.” said John Driscoll, Executive Vice President and President, U.S. Healthcare, Walgreens Boots Alliance. “Our partnership with Pearl Health allows us to reach more communities faster and enable comprehensive, affordable care that improves long-term health outcomes and fosters healthier communities.”
Pearl Health’s technology, insights, and value-based care partnership models empower clinical teams to provide holistic, personalized treatment necessary for value-based, quality-focused care. Walgreens will provide complementary services, including hospital discharge management, prescription fulfillment, medication adherence, immunizations, post-acute interventions, care gap closure and diagnostic testing.
Expanding Partnerships Ecosystem
While Pearl Health focuses on supporting PCPs in their transition to value-based care, our team understands that many patients have specific, complex disease burdens that often go beyond the traditional responsibilities and scope of primary care. To address this, Pearl is building a growing network of specialist partnerships through which aligned specialty providers offer clinical support and wrap-around services that augment the care that PCPs provide for their patients.
In 2023, Pearl partnered with specialty providers such as Story Health to offer scalable specialty cardiac care and Vori Health to provide virtual-first musculoskeletal care. As we look forward, we’re excited to partner with more and more specialty partners to expand the care options available to primary care providers — and their patients.
#3 20x Network Growth Since 2022 & Expansion to 43 States
In 2023, approximately 1,800 primary care providers across the US partnered with Pearl Health, representing more than 20x growth in two years and expanding our network to 43 states.
Over the last year, we partnered with a wider array of primary care organizations than ever, including: health systems, clinically integrated networks (CINs), independent physician associations (IPAs), accountable care organizations (ACOs), large group practices, and small private practices.
The continued expansion of the Pearl Community and diversification of our network reflects the growing appetite for participation in innovative value-based care programs. We’re delighted to welcome these new partners to the Pearl Community and excited to collaborate with them to develop care models that put patient and provider experience first and allow them to focus on delivering the highest quality of care.
“We are excited to work with Pearl Health to enhance our capabilities in value-based care for our Medicare patients. Pearl Health’s technology platform and services will enable us to better identify and manage the needs of our high-risk and rising-risk patients, improve our quality performance, and optimize PCPs’ revenue potential,” said Dr. Michael Synn, Chief Medical Officer at Santé Physicians IPA. “We look forward to collaborating with Pearl Health to achieve our goals of improving patient satisfaction, health outcomes, and cost efficiency.”
Through our collaboration with this growing network of primary care providers and organizations across the country, we have also developed a more nuanced understanding of the many challenges faced by PCPs across the US today.
Many of these learnings culminated in Pearl Health’s 2023 Primary Care Pulse Survey & Report, which identifies key challenges, impediments, and frustrations that PCPs are confronted with today, as well as opportunities to achieve deeper satisfaction in their work, greater financial reward, and better outcomes for patients and the healthcare system.
Complimentary Report
Primary Care Pulse
Download Pearl’s annual Primary Care Pulse report to learn more about challenges and opportunities facing providers today
#4 Surfacing “Clinical Pearls” & Driving Performance in Value
In 2022, we launched the Pearl Platform, a lightweight, easy-to-use technology platform designed to help PCPs and clinical staff proactively manage patient panels. The platform is powered by the Signal-Action Framework, which leverages data science and clinical expertise to 1) identify the right opportunities to improve patient outcomes and drive savings, and 2) surface those opportunities to providers through an intuitive user experience that helps them focus on the right patients and actions. In its first year, the Pearl Platform included detailed patient information with data across providers and facilities and core functionality to help providers take actions that drive success in value-based care, such as chronic care check-ins, annual wellness visits (AWVs), and admit, discharge, and transfer (ADT) alerts.
White Paper
Signal-Action Framework & Urgency Score
In this document, you’ll learn about the algorithm and signals that power the insights surfaced within the Pearl Platform.
In 2023, as we increased the volume of data in our platform, we also incorporated more sophisticated approaches to driving value, including the introduction of 10 new clinical signals to help providers deliver better, more proactive care. These include alerts to predict and prevent emergency department visits, reduce unplanned admissions, identify opportunities for transitional care management (TCM), and help patients with advance care planning (ACP). In keeping with our design principles of simplicity and ease-of-use, all of these patient insights are incorporated into a single, increasingly advanced Signal-Action Framework that powers the insights surfaced through our intuitive technology platform.
At the close of 2023, we’re proud to report that PCPs and clinical staff have taken approximately 50,000 actions through the Pearl Platform.
The downstream impacts of these actions are meaningful, leading to more proactive patient outreach and increased performance in value-based care programs. In 2023, in aggregate, providers in the Pearl Community have scheduled approximately 1,000 post-discharge follow-up visits, increased the percentage of their patient panel with scheduled annual wellness visits (AWVs) by more than 10%, and reduced the percentage of high-urgency patients in their patient panels by 30%.
As we look forward, we continue to take a principled approach to evolving the Pearl Platform, making improvements that surface actionable information in low-friction, easily-consumable ways. In 2024, we’re excited to invest in systems that facilitate practice prioritization decisions, increase visibility into how well providers are doing against performance objectives, incorporate new data sources, increase EHR integration capabilities, and pilot new service offerings to remove less critical work and reduce administrative burden.
We are setting bold goals for ourselves and our clients in 2024. As we double the number of patients in our platform, we aim to more than double the number of high-value actions taken in support of their care across our growing inventory of proactive, patient-centric signals. We invite our practices and our clinical partners to join us in this challenge!
#5 100 Employees & Talent Model Built for Scale
Pearl Leadership Hires in 2023
Dr. Cameron Berg, MD, FACEP, FAAEM
Executive Vice President, Clinical Strategy
Prior to joining Pearl full time as Executive Vice President, Clinical Strategy, Dr. Berg served as a Senior Clinical Advisor to Pearl. Before his experience with Pearl, Dr. Berg worked as an emergency physician while also developing an interest in population health and a passion for disambiguating complicated workflows. Dr. Berg holds a BA from Pomona College, an MD with honors from The George Washington School of Medicine, and completed specialty training in Emergency Medicine at Stanford.
Patrick Mauro
Executive Vice President, Data Science & Analytics
Patrick learned the craft of statistical analysis and distributed computing while working as a high-frequency trader at Hudson River Trading, where he led a team trading US and European equities. Thereafter, Patrick consulted across a variety of industries, from entertainment to food rescue to biomedical engineering. Patrick holds an SM in Electrical Engineering and an AB in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Harvard College.
Ciara Walsh
Chief of Staff
Before joining Pearl, Ciara worked as a Consultant at Bain & Company in London, where she advised businesses on M&A due diligence, strategy, separation and integration, cost reduction, and marketing. Following this, Ciara worked as an Investment Associate for an Irish impact investing fund, VentureWave, and co-founded a climate-tech start-up. Ciara holds a BA in Management Science and Information Systems from Trinity College Dublin and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
April Greene
Senior Vice President, Medicare Advantage
Prior to joining Pearl, April led network contracting and operations at CVS Health/Aetna, where she served as Chief Network and Operations Officer for New England. Before her time at CVS Health/Aetna, April served as Vice President of Population Health and Clinical Operations for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Executive Director of Joint Venture Business Development at Aetna, and had a long tenure at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts in various roles, including Network Contracting, Value-Based Care and Health and Medical Management. April holds a BS from Northeastern University and an MBA from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.
Ryan Donahue
Vice President, Software Engineering
Prior to Pearl, Ryan managed multiple teams at Amazon, including the Alexa Healthcare team responsible for enabling Alexa to conduct Telehealth visits. Before Amazon, Ryan worked at Vulcan, a tech-for-good organization started by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Before Vulcan, Ryan provided tech leadership for Valant, a healthcare tech startup that created a highly configurable electronic medical record system for Medicaid funded hospitals and organizations focused on mental health. Ryan studied Health Informatics at UC Davis and distributed system and application development at the University of Washington.
Chris Chambers
Senior Director, Growth Solutions
Prior to Pearl, Chris was on the Solutions team at Clarify Health, where he led the largest complex provider deals and helped secure Series D financing led by SoftBank and BlackRock. Prior to Clarify, Chris founded High Line Health (acquired by Apax Partners), a data visualization and analytics company providing value-based care insights to payers and providers. Prior to High Line, Chris was a consultant with Navigant Guidehouse. Chris holds a BA in Economics from Colgate University and an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
Garrett Colgan
Senior Director, Finance and Strategy
Before joining Pearl, Garrett worked in healthcare investment banking as a Vice President at Cain Brothers, where he advised health systems and physician groups through a variety of M&A transactions and strategic initiatives. Prior to investment banking, Garrett was a Manager of ambulatory care business operations at NYU Langone Health, where he focused on the expansion and development of the system’s single and multispecialty physician group network. Garrett holds a BS from Skidmore College where he studied business and economics.
Billy Young
Head of Growth Operations and Strategy
Prior to Pearl, Billy helped lead youth prevention efforts at JUUL Labs. Before this experience, Billy held sales operations and strategy roles at Capsule Pharmacy and Zocdoc. He started his career in healthcare consulting at The Chartis Group, where he supported large healthcare systems through organizational transformations and partnership developments. Billy holds a BS in Bioengineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from The Wharton School.
Pearl is led by provider-enablement, risk-bearing, and technology experts who are thoughtfully building a mission-driven team to accelerate healthcare’s transition to value-based care.
We’re still rapidly expanding across functions, including data science, engineering, product, network development, and customer success.
Interested in joining our team in 2024? Check out opportunities on our Careers Page.
